


Protection

by GayDemonicDisaster (scrapheapchallenge)



Series: Protection [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Angels, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is So Done (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Demons, Devils, Fallen Angels, Heaven, Hell, Hurt Crowley, M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Vampires, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens), Worried Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-04 15:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21199874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapheapchallenge/pseuds/GayDemonicDisaster
Summary: In the weeks after Armageddon't, an inept fallen angel and a concientious objector principality are at a loss of what to do with themselves, and feeling uneasy... Includes soft loving moments, but takes a hard turn into a rampage into Hell, with Aziraphale going full-on Cherubim warrior with lots of smiting and holy wrath.





	1. breathing space

To the World. Breathe. Breathing space…

… So what now? Aziraphale and Crowley haven’t felt like this before. Unsure where they stand, what they are supposed to DO. They are persona non grata in their respective spheres. For the first time in six millennia they are cast adrift. Feeling uneasy and uncertain, completely without direction is unnerving. Even while thwarting Armageddon at least they were actively working toward SOMETHING, even if it wasn’t what they were made for. (Unless, as Aziraphale secretly considered, the Almighty might have written in their exact roles as Spanner In The Works of the Great Plan, into her Ineffable Plan). Who knew? Well, one Being of course, but she was keeping shtum. No help from that quarter, they were on their own.

So what do an inept Fallen Angel and Conscientious Objector Principality do when there’s no longer a job to do, or a boss to report to? Especially when said bosses very definitely want their heads, if only in retribution for the loss of face when each failed to disappear (or “shut your stupid mouth and die already”, as Gabriel had put it so eloquently). It’s hard to think of something mundane and human like taking a holiday, especially when there isn’t a job to go back to at the end of it. True, they don’t NEED a job per se, but eternity is a long time for (mostly) immortal beings to sit around and twiddle their thumbs. Although Crowley had considered taking up the art of Bonsai* in addition to his regular plants, as sculpting tiny oaks over extremely long periods of time is something perfectly up his tree, pun intended. When you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, slow, long lasting hobbies are probably the way to go.

Then there’s also the uncertainty – mostly immortal, yes, but before there was always the knowledge that you could rely on heaven or hell to supply you with a fresh body should yours get inconveniently discorporated, even if it was a purgatory of paperwork on a par with negotiations with the DWP. (Crowley absolutely refused to accept a commendation for that one – something as evil as the DWP** was worse than anything even the most hateful demon could think up, again, it was all humans there.)

True, both were skilled at keeping their bodies in one piece, but maintaining your self confidence in this area isn’t as easy when you know you don’t get to go around again if you slip up.

So… tread carefully. Watch and wait, suspect everyone, trust no one.

It’s driving Crowley insane. Aziraphale may be delighted to escape into his books, but Crowley is crawling the walls, occasionally literally, having only the least tangential respect for gravity. Crowley isn’t keen on laws in general, and doesn’t see why the laws of physics should be any different, and isn’t averse to holding up a metaphorical finger to them when the occasion suits him. But attempting to take a nap on the ceiling*** is distracting Aziraphale, who brushes plaster off his book, glancing upwards with mild annoyance.

“Are you _sure_ you wouldn’t be more comfortable heading on over to yours for a little bit, dear?” he sighed with gentle exasperation. Crowley stared at him from the ceiling.

“HOW are you so damned relaxed, Angel? How can you just sit there without a care in the bloody world? What if those bastards figure out what we did and come back for another try?”

What he didn’t say, didn’t want to put voice to was _what if they come back and I’m not here to help you?_ That terrified him more than anything. It almost HURT to be too far away from his Angel since he almost lost him. Quite apart from the stench of the demonic puddle in his flat, courtesy of Ligur, a metaphysical stain that would never wash out with any mundane means, it was too big there, too empty, too Angel-less. Besides when he had slept over there one night, his nightmares were haunted by hearing the scrape of shoes in the hallway and echoes of Hastur and Ligur creeping in. It didn’t feel safe anymore.

“Well for heaven’s sake, Crowley, at least go for a walk or something, maybe get us some nibbles for dinner?” Aziraphale suggested softly, his eyes kind. He could see how wound up his friend was, just some fresh air and a change of scene might distract him a little. He may dearly love Crowley, but to the slightly introverted Aziraphale, Crowley’s nervous energy could become a bit too much on occasion, such as when he was resolutely trying to read one of the new old books that Adam had thoughtfully supplied the bookshop with when he reset everything after the Armageddon’t.

Crowley sighed and dropped lightly back to the carpet again. He gave Aziraphale’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. (It still felt … forbidden, something he was still getting used to, little steps…) smiled at him and sauntered toward the door. “Ok Angel, you win, got phone?” Aziraphale fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for the unfamiliar little device that Crowley had INSISTED he accept. Whilst he still resisted actually using it to do anything with, he agreed to keep it if only for the emergency panic button feature built in, which Crowley had programmed to immediately alert him with the Angel’s location, and any video/audio happening at the time should it be pushed, in case anything happened, so he could find him quickly and rush back. Aziraphale held it up and waved it before slipping it back into his pocket again. With a lopsided smile and a nod, Crowley stalked out into the damp autumn evening air, the bell above the door chiming as the door closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * If any of you thought of Lu-Tze's bonsai mountains at this point, well done, have a cookie, because I thought it too, but couldn't find a reasonable way to make bonsai mountains exist in this universe, so tiny trees it is instead, sorry. 
> 
> ** DWP - Department of Work and Pensions, a particularly evil British government department whose sole apparent purpose appears to be the psychological torture of sick and disabled humans. Don't get me started, really. 
> 
> *** Deleted scene from the show involves Crowley defying gravity and attempting to nap on the walls and ceiling of his flat. There are a couple of photos of this scene being shot if you look around.


	2. An evening stroll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley goes for an evening stroll to give Aziraphale some peace, and makes a strange new aquaintance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning - hint at unseen possible domestic violence.  
Blood. (get used to it, it'll get worse before it gets better)

The nights were drawing in earlier this time of year, but the hustle and bustle of Soho carried on unabated, a hive of activity and splashes of colour. So many humans, oblivious to the fate they so narrowly avoided, bustling around the wet streets on mysterious errands of their own. It was a Friday evening and the clubs were starting to fill up with humans keen to drink the stress of the week away and relax. Crowley sauntered through the crowds, idly people watching, probably kidding himself that it was idle curiosity, when really deep down his instincts were scanning for any warning signs of suspicious activity. He couldn’t switch off, he remained tense, nervous and watchful despite his exterior expression of louche casualness.

Crowley slipped into one of the bars, glared at a corner table until the giggling girls occupying it inexplicably all felt the sudden desire to bugger off somewhere else without quite knowing why, then he wandered over with a respectable bottle of red and a glass, and sat down where he could observe most of the room, without anyone being able to get behind him. He had no intention of getting carelessly drunk, but gently sozzled would probably be helpful at this point to his general state of mind. He could chill out for a bit then wander back past the patisserie which stayed open late in deference to the tastes of the locals, pick up some nice little pain au chocolats or brioche for Aziraphale to enjoy, and head back to the bookshop.

In the meantime, his gaze took in the bar, the humans drinking and chatting and having fun. Short, fragile little lives, but they made so MUCH of them, they didn’t understand the brevity of their existence, they just went with it and did what felt good. No longer being officially a demon, Crowley wasn’t under any pressure to perform any temptations, unless he felt like it for his own amusement, but he didn’t. Far from it. It looked like the humans had enough problems without him adding to them – they deserved a break from Crowley, he figured, and took another swallow of wine.

He'd got past the half bottle mark when raised voices prickled his attention, a little over the already not insignificant clamour of the music and general background noise of a busy Saturday night bar. Over toward the back door, which was open to let the smokers out, and the “fresh” air in, a red haired girl in a pink strappy top and blue skirt, clutching a bottle of something cheap and alcoholic was stepping backwards whilst a tall but skinny guy in his 20s advanced on her shouting. Clearly a couple, but Crowley hissed under his breath, there was no excuse for that much aggression in the guy’s stance. It didn’t look good.

It would surprise precisely no one who actually knew him well (i.e.: Aziraphale), that Crowley, even before, still couldn’t stand injustices or cruelty, and would bend the rules to breaking point to avoid doing anything that would cause humans too much harm. He probably thwarted more of his own plots than Aziraphale ever did for him. He had a soft spot for humans, he couldn’t help it. Crowley downed the remainder of his wine glass and set it down, and stood with an irritated groan, before stalking across the dancefloor toward the opposite corner, projecting a small field of unease ahead of his anger, that caused a ripple effect of humans clearing a path for him without quite knowing why, just that they didn’t want to be standing THERE at that exact moment in time.

The tall lanky guy had pulled his girlfriend out of the back door into the yard behind before Crowley got there, and stepped out through a cloud of cigarette and vape smoke into the dimly-lit “beer garden” (a concrete yard with a space heater and some half rotten picnic tables, inhabited only by a couple of older guys nursing a pint and a packet of Marlboro, and a couple of hipsters with vape pens in the doorway, oblivious to everything). Not to Crowley though. He gave them a Look, and they suddenly found themselves needing to go back inside to find the bathroom. That left Crowley in the yard with Lanky dude and his girlfriend.

“Jay, NO! I came out with Melissa and Angie, I don’t want to go home again, why can’t I just stay out here? Go drink with your own mates for a bit!” She was shouting at him, but Crowley could hear the slight twang of nervousness in her voice. Lanky, or Jay, was pulling the “loom over the girl intimidation” move, getting into her personal space and shouting down at her

“No, Laura, those other guys was lookin at you, and look at what you’re wearing!”. Crowley coughed gently. The sound for some reason cutting through their awareness like a knife. Jay turned, his back to Laura, to see who had interrupted him.

Crowley grinned slowly, and flicked off his shades, just to add to his general air of menace, as he couldn’t be bothered to actually do anything physical, especially if it were to get his clothes dirty. A sufficient dose of demonic menace added to his aura could be enough to leave most mortals cowering in a puddle of their own urine, if manipulated correctly. Jay proved no different, this weird eyed guy was TERRIFYING, and he felt like a ball of ice was sinking through his stomach. Every bad thing he’d ever done seemed to be replaying in his head, and he suddenly knew that no one gets away with stuff like this forever.

“I think YOU need to go home” suggested Crowley, with a calm menace in his quiet voice. “And stay there for a while. I don’t think going to visit Laura’s home would be a good idea. I don’t think talking to her or even calling her is going to be a good idea. YOU are only going to talk to her if she invitessssss you to.” Jay’s knees gave way and he whimpered. The Weird eyed guy hadn’t even touched him, but his heart was hammering like he’d just had the worst jump scare ever and his blood felt like ice. He felt like he’d just dodged death somehow. He felt like someone had pissed in his pants. That might have been him. He scrambled up in a panic, slipping on wet leaves on the concrete, and ran for the door. Crowley popped his shades on again before Laura could see.

“You ok?” Crowley asked the girl. She looked a little shaken, but smiled at him.

“Thank you” she said quietly. Just then another couple of girls staggered out of the club.

“THERE you are! We were looking all over for you!” Crowley stepped back as the girls gathered around their friend and escorted her back inside, consoling her. They didn’t notice Crowley. He took a seat on one of the picnic benches, and waved vaguely at the open door, which swung shut.

“That was nice” a voice remarked beside him. Crowley startled. The yard had been EMPTY, there was no way in other than the door and a locked gate at the other end. And yet a woman was sitting on the picnic table next to him, who had definitely not been there 5 seconds earlier. Crowley stared, something was not right about this … person? No. Not person, not human anyway. LOOKED human, not human. Not angel, not particularly demonic either, but not right. His first thought, as always, was for Aziraphale, he was alone…

“Relax, I’m not here to harm you”. She smiled and stood up to stretch. She was nearly 6 foot tall, not skinny, but curved and muscular on a strong frame. Long hair that danced between brown, auburn and gold. Her face was… hard to describe. Pleasant but not overly attention grabbing, but the more you looked, the more you felt unable to look away. Her eyes were that curious ambivalent grey/green/blue shade that seems to vary in intensity depending on the lighting conditions. It was a face that, he felt, the owner could compel you to remember or forget at will, depending on whether they wanted to be remembered or forgotten. Her clothes were fairly nondescript, black jeans, cowboy boots, dark shirt, no designer labels or obvious features.

Crowley had stepped back nonetheless, wary and eyeing the walls for escape options just in case.

“I’ve been trying to find you for a little while, I guessed you might be around Soho, but you’re pretty good at blending in when you want to. You can’t conceal that car as easily though, and I know you’re never far from her, Crowley”. She held out her hand to him, Crowley took it, warily, and shook it. She smiled. Not a threatening smile at all, just calmly friendly, although with a slight twitch of the lip as their hands made contact. His hand tingled at her touch.

“Uh… who are you exactly? And how do you know my name?” They were certainly the most obvious questions he needed answering, the newcomer didn’t seem to mind. She smiled and sat down again, on the table top, her feet resting on the bench seat. She patted next to her for Crowley to sit down. He acquiesced, nervously.

“Ok, you’ll need to bear with me, it’s not all quite so straightforward to understand, but you’re a smart entity, I know you’ll get it. Besides, you’re less likely to get scared and confused as Aziraphale, I didn’t want to approach him first, he’d draw all the wrong conclusions. So. Who am I? Might have to leave that one for a little later in the discussion, it’s complicated and honestly I don’t even have an answer for all of it yet. For now call me an impartial observer. I’m not part of heaven or hell, and not part of humanity either. Not on one side or another. Like you, I’m on my own side, which makes me a bit of a free agent, with any amount of free will. Currently flying under the radar of your lot, and hoping to keep it that way for now.”

Clear as mud. Crowley was no further forward.

“As to how I know you… and Aziraphale of course. Well there was a certain amount of chaos a few weeks ago. Your pantheon got rather out of hand and decided to try and obliterate the world and everyone, and everything on it. What they decided to forget was that they’re not the only supernatural beings who hang around this planet, there’s scores of other gods who were pretty damn pissed off that your lot came *this* close to wiping everyone out – whether they were part of your religion or not. They didn’t consult the other gods, and w… they had no idea what was going on until it was all underway and too late to stop. Besides the fact that other Human gods getting involved in a cross-pantheon celestial war over who decides when the world ends would be a whole other clusterfuck of chaos in itself.”

Crowley nodded, starting to get the idea. For some reason he couldn’t think of anything to say other than “yikes”.

The woman carried on. “The other gods were at least able to see what you two were up to, and did what they could to unobtrusively … nudge… a bit of fortune in your favour here and there where they could without drawing attention. They couldn’t do anything huge. Just making sure your Bentley actually across the M25 in more or less one piece was hard enough. You were fed enough extra power for you to hold it together long enough to get through. Same with the scooter over the top – it shouldn’t have made it by rights. Helicopters couldn’t even get over the top of it without being turned into copter McNuggets. Aziraphale had to be able to get across with his human companions. The book of prophecies being forgotten in the back of your car. The ash tree falling at the back of the air base – just little things that nudged in tiny ways, just enough to help without starting a shitstorm of holy war for interference, but it was a big risk nonetheless”.

Supressing a shudder, Crowley considered her words. By all rights he shouldn’t have been able to hold the Bentley together that long – hell, even HASTUR had discorporated during the crossing, Crowley still didn’t know why he hadn’t, but he had felt that he’d been capable of more power than he’d felt before, he’d put it down to adrenaline boosting his demonic powers a bit through sheer terror.

  
“So – there’s a lot of celestial beings who owe you chaps a bit of a thank you for saving the world, and their worshippers to boot, but they can’t come right out and say it, or get involved, without it getting a bit political. They’ve all got pieces on the board. They can’t risk getting closely involved. But your actions have pissed off your head offices as well – your little stunt with the fire and water may have fooled the angels and demons carrying out the sentences, but don’t imagine that your God and Satan were necessarily as stupid, or that even the angels and demons couldn’t work it out given enough time – and they’re going to be PISSED. You two need to be safe – you’ve got something no other entity has. You’ve become guardians of the world, whether you know it or not. Neither of you are what you began as, but even guardians need guardians. You can feel it yourself, can’t you? You don’t feel safe, you know it’s too good to be true that they’ll leave you alone forever, and you can’t get on and live with that hanging over you.”

Crowley looked at her askance. “So… they sent you?”

  
She smiled. “Not officially. They perhaps very emphatically did NOT send me, they may have just had many rather loud conversations in my presence whilst dropping several hints. I might owe some of them a favour or two anyway, and frankly I’ve got nothing better to do. Life as an immortal higher being can be a rather long and tedious affair, so a little excitement is quite welcome.” She smiled warmly at him. It was the smile that took the face from fairly plain to lit up from within. But there was still something odd about her. No not odd, it was like something slightly scarier hidden somewhere underneath maybe. Crowley couldn’t put his finger on it.


	3. what's in a name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley gets to know his strange new acquaintance better

“So, you’re a god…?” he asked, eyebrows quizzical in a way that only Crowley’s rubber faced expressions could manage. She tipped her head to the side a little.

“Yes, and no, kind of, not exactly in the way you’re thinking. I’m not really worshipped by or created by humans, which makes me a convenient impartial party. I’ve no vested interest in ANYONE’S worshippers. I don’t want any apostasy, don’t want humans to repudiate their gods in favour of me – it wouldn’t get them anywhere even if they did, they don’t interest me directly, but I don’t want them killing off either, and I still want the world to go round.”

Crowley was by now pretty thoroughly confused – when is a god not a god? What kind of god exists that doesn’t need humans to worship them? “I told you it was complicated” she said apologetically. “It’s probably easier to show you”. She stood up and brushed off her jeans.

“You still haven’t told me your name” Crowley reminded her.

She paused. “Hm. Don’t really have one, never needed one, my… worshippers never call me by name, they’re probably too afraid of what might happen if they did. They try to avoid mentioning me in case it brings my attention to them or something. They don’t necessarily want my attention all the time. I’m just generally the Goddess.”

“I’m not calling you Goddess” replied Crowley, flatly, not caring if it offended her or not.

“Wouldn’t dream of it” replied the Goddess. “You’re not one of mine anyway so it doesn’t work regardless. I’m not YOUR goddess. Hm. Goddess…uh… uh. OH. Goddessa – Odessa*. That’ll do as good as anything – that suit you?” she asked him. Crowley hadn’t been asked to pick a name for a complete stranger before, but yup, he guessed it’d do as well as any other name for now. He shrugged assent.

“Odessa, Goddess of….?” He queried.

Odessa looked thoughtful, trying to find a way to describe it. “It’s hard to describe without you getting completely the wrong idea, so easier to show you. Walk with me? You can be sneaky, I know you can, when I give you the nod, be unnoticeable. I’ll still be able to see you because I’ll have clocked your position before it happens and can’t just forget your existence, but anyone who hasn’t yet seen you, won’t start, right?” Crowley nodded – it was a handy skill to have, it didn’t always work on other supernatural entities, but pretty reliable on humans. Odessa opened the door and slid back into the bar, Crowley followed a few steps behind.

She moved in a weirdly captivating way, putting him in mind of some kind of animal predator slinking through the long grass. Every movement was precise, with no wasted effort or fidgeting, she moved exactly where she wanted to with the easy grace of a well-muscled cat, she FLOWED through the crowd. She seemed to be scanning the humans with sharp eyes, but apparently didn’t see what she was looking for, so beckoned Crowley with a flick of her head to follow her out of the front door, and down the street.

They got to a bigger, busier place, a nightclub with the heavy thud of bass shaking the pavement outside. Rather than joining the queue, Odessa walked straight up to the bouncer and walked past him, he didn’t notice her, or Crowley, as they went through the door.

Once inside, Odessa positioned herself on a raised area to the side of the dancefloor, rested her arms on a balustrade, and observed the heaving mass of bodies with idle curiosity. Crowley took up position next to her and tried to see what she was looking for. The music was annoying him. He saw her head twitch from the corner of his eye and noticed her lift her head slightly as if she’d smelled something interesting in the air. Crowley couldn’t pick up anything except sweaty human bodies, cheap perfume, axe body spray, spilled beer, and the faint miasma of piss and vomit from the direction of the toilets. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. Odessa seemed curious, scanning the building, she stepped down onto the dancefloor and made her way through the mass of bodies like a shark through water, until he saw her gaze lock onto a couple on the other side.

Sitting at a table against the far wall a pair of young guys in their 20s were sitting together, hands all over each other, kissing. The shorter lad was lean and brown haired, with beautiful blue eyes and short spiky hair, wearing jeans, vans, and a band t-shirt. The other looked slightly older with blonde hair in a short scruffy mess, but wearing beautifully tailored clothes, expensive Italian shoes and designer stubble. He looked like he’d finished a long day of investment banking and was all set for a weekend of credit card fuelled debauchery. Crowley smiled approvingly. They looked a cute couple. What the fuck did Odessa want with them? If she was some messed up anti-gay goddess of hatred he’d take her bitch arse down no matter what, but he didn’t get that impression. She stopped short of them and sat down at a table a short distance away, only glancing at them occasionally. Crowley remained at his vantage point for now to see what would play out.

The Blonde was clearly making suggestions in his companion’s ear about what they should do next, which apparently included heading for the door. They stood and left, hand in hand, and a moment later, Odessa followed at a distance. Crowley followed suit, wary. Once out of the front door again he noticed she was hanging back, watching the couple walk down the street, possibly slightly drunk, on a mission to presumably get somewhere a little more private to carry on their intimate moment. They ducked down an alley. Odessa glanced back at Crowley and inclined her head. He obediently went full stealth mode, and followed.

Reaching the end of the cluttered alley, he could hear the couple’s gentle moans already. They hadn’t noticed Odessa standing by a wheelie bin a few metres away, but then neither had Crowley until he concentrated hard. Blondie had the brunette up against the wall, necking passionately. Crowley felt awkward. Turned on, but definitely awkward. Then he smelt it. Something wrong. Blood. Yet the couple were still apparently very much enjoying themselves with groans of pleasure, blondie gripping his lover tightly up against the wall, brunette’s head tipped back in ecstasy. Then Crowley saw it, his night vision was second to none, and he saw a tiny droplet of blood making its way down brunette boy’s neck.

  
_WHAT? Vampire?_ He thought. He’d honestly never realised they existed, but on second thought, there was no particular reason why not. You can’t be a supernatural being yourself and think you’re the only one. Of course there are millions of other beings in the world, some rarer than others, so there was little reason that vampires shouldn’t be a thing. He’d just never come across one before outside of bad B-movies He guessed he wasn’t able to discern them. His train of thought was interrupted by Odessa’s voice.

“You will drop him”. The voice wasn’t overly loud, but STRONG. It carried undertones of harmonics that stated this was not a request, or even a command, it was simply the way it was GOING to be, whether the listener felt like it or not. A chill flashed down Crowley’s spine. She was suddenly terrifying. He had a brief glimpse of how Jay might have felt earlier. The vampire, for that’s what blonde boy was, dropped brunette boy in shock, eyes wide, and spun round. The brunette dropped bonelessley, unconscious, but not dead, to the alley floor, sliding down the wall in an undignified heap.

Odessa stepped forward. Blondie’s eyes seemed to get wider, he stepped back. Crowley could smell the fear radiating off him. “_KNEEL_” was the next command. Blondie hit the deck, whimpering in terror. Crowley felt his own legs sag in automatic obedience. “Not you” Odessa flung over in his direction. “See to the boy”. Crowley darted forward and picked up the stricken lad, cradling his head in his arms. He could feel a pulse, but he was out cold. His neck had a freely bleeding wound, Crowley pulled the boy’s t-shirt up and wadded it over the wound, applying pressure. At least it wasn’t spurting, which was a good sign – not an artery then.

The vampire was still whimpering on the floor. Odessa stepped toward him, looking down on him and exuding an aura of sheer menace, whilst appearing completely calm. “Do you know who I am?” she asked him.

“Yes” came the quiet reply, his breathing was rapid, his voice shaky.

“Do you know WHAT I am?” she pressed.

His reply was even weaker this time, a whispered “yes”. He managed to look both terrified and weirdly aroused, very conflicted.

“And you know what I do?” she continued.

“Yes” – slightly yearning this time? Still shaky.

“And do you want it?” she returned. Blondie nodded his head, tears were running down his face, but he leaned toward her nonetheless.

The Goddess stepped up to him, and lifted him up easily with one hand by his shiny silk tie. He didn’t resist, his breaths fast and short. He couldn’t break eye contact. She pulled him close, her face inches from his. “You want this?” she repeated. Blondie groaned assent – and leaned in, need etched into every line of his body, Crowley looked on in confusion. He’d never seen someone exhibit terror AND apparent lust at the same time, it was weirdly erotic.

Odessa leaned forward, breathing in Blondie’s scent, lightly brushing his neck with her lips, eliciting another tortured moan from him, and then slowly, gently, sank her long canines through the flesh. He gasped, but not in pain, it sounded downright orgasmic, and he clutched back at her. Crowley could see her throat rippling as she swallowed, each gulp drawing fresh moans and shudders from the besuited blonde as he sagged in her arms.

It didn’t take long, a moment later she lifted her head back slightly, then licked the wound to close it, and let him fall to the ground, unconscious, but alive – or whatever vampires are – undead, Crowley supposed. She then turned to Crowley where he sat cradling the brunette boy in his arms, pressing the lad’s bloody t-shirt to the wound in his neck. Hunkering down, she gently lifted the prone boy from Crowley, and licked his neck wound closed as well. She studied him for a moment, thinking, then looked around toward the main road at the end of the alley, where drunken pub goers staggered from one venue to the next, she appeared to be sniffing again.

A look of concentration, and she extended a hand in the direction of the road where, a grey haired gent in his 50s stood near the corner, taking a leak against the brickwork. No one seemed to be able, or willing, to look down the alleyway, Crowley guessed there was some kind of warding spell going on, so the older guy didn’t see them. Odessa held her open hand in his direction, and then lifted it slightly, and closed it. The guy shivered like a goose had walked over his grave but was otherwise unbothered. Odessa drew her hand back towards her, then, opening, toward brunette boy’s prone form in her arms. His skin instantly lost its pallor and a healthier pink glow returned to his cheeks and his beautiful long dark eyelashes fluttered weakly. `

“Just had to snatch a cloud of O neg from someone nearby. They won’t miss it, but his blood pressure was low and he won’t regain consciousness as soon unless it’s replaced” she explained. Crowley gawped at her.

“You what?” he exclaimed.

“Blood” she repeated. “O negative is the universal donor, just had to sniff one out – that guy down the end happens to be convenient. I can’t use yours, not sure what it’d do to a mortal, certainly can’t use Blondie’s over there, that’s a whole other kettle of fish but it probably wouldn’t end well, and definitely don’t want to use mine for similar reasons.”

Crowley stammered. “B.. But… HOW?”.

She shrugged. “I just picked up about a pint, the blood cells can squeeze out between the cells of the body in a blood mist, and are just as easily pushed into the recipient, and it’s painless for them.” Blondie doesn’t get any though, he doesn’t need it, he’ll be a bit tired for a day or two then back on his feet.” She considered the suited, prone form next to them, and continued. “I could have killed him, but the situation didn’t call for it, seems like he’s not actually a bad sort, he wasn’t hurting the boy, and he was doing the same – taking a drink, but didn’t intend to kill him, he’d have left him alive for another day. A little leniency was called for on this occasion. I’d be able to tell if he was one of the worse ones.”

“…How?” queried Crowley, weakly.

She winked. “It’s just one of the things I can do. He’s one of mine after all. Like Santa, I know who’s naughty and nice”. She grinned.

“Right, drag brunette to the end of the alley, there’s some coppers up the street, they’ll feel the need to patrol down here in about 2 minutes time and will call him an ambulance – he’ll just need to sleep it off, he’ll be fine. Blondie can stay here, he’ll come to in a while as well and can sort himself out. I’ll be able to keep tabs on him now, he’s mine, he can’t hide from me.” She turned to the prone form and jokingly announced at it “I henceforth dub thee ‘Soho Snack’, dear boy”, and laughed.

  
Crowley grudgingly obliged with the other boy. Dragging unconscious humans around wasn’t his idea of a fun evening out, but he wanted more questions answering. They then strolled out of the alley together unnoticed by the general populace, whilst the CCTV camera covering the door of the neighbouring bar inexplicably glitched out with interference as they passed. Supernatural entities don’t have to show up on cameras if they don’t want to. “Let’s get somewhere a little quieter, eh?” suggested Odessa. “You lead the way.” Crowley tucked his hands in his pockets and slouched in the general direction of a small local park that he liked to hang out at sometimes and torment the ducks feeding them enchanted bread that made them briefly sink. He hadn’t felt like doing it recently though.

They took a seat on a stone bench by a particularly ugly statue of some general or other on a badly carved horse. The siren of an ambulance wailed past in the distance. “So, um, vampire goddess then?” Began Crowley.

  
“Indeed. If I’d just used those words outright you’d probably have assumed I was one of them, preying on humanity. I’m not. I prey on them. I take out the bad apples, but in the interest of balance, leave those who do no harm. They deserve to exist as well, and if they manage to co-exist in a stable symbiotic relationship with the humans, there’s little reason to obliterate all of them.”

“So do you ever drink human blood?” Crowley was intrigued.

She made a face. “No.” she looked faintly revolted at the thought. Even licking that one wasn’t my cup of tea to be frank. “Next question?”

Crowley sat silent for a while. “…So a bunch of gods got together and (didn’t) send someone who was as close to impartial as you can get in theology, to … what, exactly?”

Odessa smiled at him. “Protect you.”

“Oh. …How?”

  
“That depends what they throw at you, or who. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it” she grinned. “Probably play it by ear.” She bit her lip, then suddenly, unexpectedly, shot forward and gave Crowley a quick kiss on the lips. It wasn’t passionate, it was almost perfunctory, but something felt … strange. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He looked up, but she was walking away already. Crowley felt something tug deep inside him. It didn’t hurt, but it was disconcerting.

“HEY! How do we get hold of you?” He demanded.

Odessa called back over her shoulder “I’ll be around. You’re on my radar now, I’ll be able to find you wherever you are, if you’re in trouble just yell, I’ll feel it. Feel free to fill Aziraphale in on what’s going on – he’ll take it better coming from you.” With that she was gone into the night.

The patisserie was long closed by the time Crowley got there, so he had to make do with some cheaper pastries from an all-night mini market instead. It was pretty late by the time he got back to the bookshop, but Aziraphale was still awake and reading. Unlike Crowley, he rarely bothered with sleep, and looked up as the bell above the door jangled with Crowley’s entrance, a smile lighting up his angelic countenance. Crowley felt his heart melt a little at the sight. He flicked off his shades and approached his Angel. “I come bearing gifts, got you a couple of pain au chocolats to go with your cocoa”. Aziraphale’s smile widened, his soft blue eyes meeting Crowley’s with such warmth that Crowley temporarily lost the power of speech again.

“Thank you my dear, how lovely! Are you feeling better for your walk?” Crowley’s face flickered awkwardly.

“Ah. Um, yessss, bit of a strange thing there, actually…”

Aziraphale looked immediately alarmed. “Are you quite alright, dear?”

  
“Yes, yes, I’m ok, it was just strange and unexpected”

  
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Well I suppose you’d better fill me in then”

  
“Ngk..” Crowley croaked. Oh hell, the Angel just didn’t GET double entendres did he? “Yes, I suppose I better had. You have your pastries, I’ll … explain.”  
He left out the bit about the weird quick kiss at the end though, that didn’t feel right. He hadn’t instigated it, but it still felt wrong somehow. He hadn’t kissed his Angel yet, he was working up to it. They’d held hands, and were coming to terms with the occasional touch, as if testing the waters, but while they still felt so … watched, or hunted, or uncertain – whatever this limbo was, they held onto their neuroses that their respective roles had drilled into them. Crowley in particular had uneasy feelings centring around open expressions of love for his Angel. He was still building confidence in that regard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I'm afraid, dear reader, that this really is how I picked a name out of the air, sorry. I was at a loss and was umming and ah-ing over it when it dawned on me. Turns out the name is rather serendipitous as well, which wasn't planned but is delightfully amusing to me, as I genuinely didn't plan it at all. Later chapters might hint at why the name is so apt, or you could be lazy and google it, I dont mind.


	4. Saturday Morning Breakfast Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Angel and a Demon recieve an invitation to brunch.

By the end, Aziraphale was deep in thought, he nibbled on the second pain au chocolat, as Crowley watched him intently as usual, gaining a quiet erotic buzz from watching his Angel consume delicacies so, so… decadently. He rarely ate himself, but would pay anything to watch Aziraphale consume good food as often as possible, gazing at those soft lips and delicate tongue at work, he idly stroked his throat and tried to get a grip on his own thoughts. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat*. “So what do you make of it?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “I honestly don’t know yet, but her reasoning appears sound, whilst it hadn’t occurred to me in the heat of the moment, it’s understandable that the other gods would take great exception to our lot blowing the world to kingdom come and leaving them out of it. You say she doesn’t appear to harm humans, and helped the one the vampire had preyed on. That’s presumably a good start. Sounds like she wants to play guardian angel of a sort, over us.” He smiled at the thought of an Angel having his own angel, it was mildly amusing.

Aziraphale explicitly did NOT think the words “over an Angel and a Demon”, neither did he think of Crowley as a Demon now, because they both knew that was no longer quite right. Hell had washed their hands of him, and no one knew exactly what that meant – it hadn’t happened before. They were relieved that Heaven taking a similar stance on Aziraphale hadn’t seemed to cause him to fall – his wings were intact, he hadn’t plummeted in a blaze of hellfire, and felt quite normal. Crowley hadn’t lost his golden serpentine eyes or beautiful dark wings. They remained the glossy black of a Crow’s wing, with the deep dark shimmer of blues and greens in certain light that Aziraphale thought quite beautiful. But still, he couldn’t think of Crowley as anything other than his Crowley. Not a demon. He thought of the term “fallen” but seeing as the act of falling is such a painful sensitive subject, and he knew that Crowley shied away from it for whatever reasons of his own, he didn’t want to use the word around him in case it upset him. He didn’t quite dare discuss with Crowley what he’d prefer, but suspected that Crowley didn’t know himself just yet either.

  
“Well, I’m going for a nap, Angel. See you in the morning”. Aziraphale watched Crowley’s hips sashay off toward the stairs at the back of the shop that led up to the flat above, where there were some old fashioned but serviceable rooms. Aziraphale rarely bothered with them, but there was a comfortable bed up there that he insisted that Crowley take rather than passing out on the sofa, where he had a distressing tendency to snore in a peculiarly sibilant way – part grunt, part hiss. Whilst endearing at first, it did wear a bit thin after a few hours, so Aziraphale banished him upstairs to the bedroom so that he could read in peace…. And keep watch. He worried over Crowley just as much as Crowley worried over him. He preferred to stay awake while Crowley slept, it was the protective instinct in him.

  
Morning came with the rattle of the post box in the front door startling Aziraphale awake from where he had slumped at his desk. Occasionally he did slip into a bit of sleep, but it was rare. He felt vaguely embarrassed to have been caught napping as it were. He sighed and went to check the post. The usual, PBFA newsletter and flyers, news from various auction houses that sometimes got hold of interesting rare books that Aziraphale sought out. And a hand written note underneath them all that had clearly arrived before the post. He opened it cautiously. It read “10am, Patisserie Hergé”.

Aziraphale softly crept upstairs. Crowley hadn’t shut the door when he went to bed, he was sprawled out on his front, wearing only silk boxers, one leg hanging out of the covers. Aziraphale could just see his bare shoulders above the sheet, and just under one scapula, the sheet slightly lower on the left than on the right, the top of a scar, as if Crowley had been injured in the back in the past, which was odd, as angelic and demonic stock don’t usually scar – they heal flawlessly unless they choose not to… or unless the damage was caused by supernatural means. Aziraphale hadn’t seen Crowley’s naked back before, and it felt like an invasion of privacy to be gazing at it uninvited now, so instead of going in, he instead knocked quietly on the half open door.

Crowley grunted “mmph” and buried his face deeper in the pillow.

Aziraphale knocked again a little louder. “Crowley?”

“g’way’nangel” was the muffled reply.

“I have a coffee for you, Crowley…”

“mmph” – an accepting tone though. Crowley rolled over onto his back. “Come on in, Angel” he managed, blearily wiping his eyes then stretching his lean body in a languid serpentine way that made Aziraphale feel positively scandalised.

  
Aziraphale entered and set the steaming coffee cup down on the bedside table. “We have a letter…” he began, and handed it over. “No envelope, just this shoved through the door – might it be your new acquaintance from last night?” Crowley shrugged and sipped the coffee, having dragged himself upright to sit against the headboard.

“Unless you know any other secret admirers who’d be inviting us out? I hardly think my lot or yours would open with a polite note, they’d more likely just stomp in here and accost us if they wanted us, not tell us they were intending to first.”

Aziraphale had sat on the edge of the bed. Cautiously he reached out and gently placed his hand on Crowley’s lower leg, just below his knee, under the sheet. Just a companionable touch, another little nudge of the boundaries. The more they normalised physical contact the less anxious they each felt over it. Crowley smiled over his coffee mug at him. Aziraphale’s heart fluttered madly and he glanced away shyly, but he kept his hand there nonetheless. After a moment he felt Crowley’s hand cover his gently, and he continued to sip his coffee.

Aziraphale didn’t want to ask about the scar, he didn’t want to admit he’d seen it, in case it was another sensitive subject, so he kept quiet and instead enjoyed the sensation of closeness for what it was, until Crowley placed the cup back on the table, lifted his hand and swung his legs out. “Right, quick shower then I’ll be down. See you in a minute”. Aziraphale smiled and left him to it.

  
A short while later they sauntered down the street toward the patisserie café. They held hands gently. Soho was the kind of place where this was nothing out of the ordinary, so it felt safe to do so. Crowley worried that his hand might be too clammy, Aziraphale just felt all fluttery inside at the sensation, almost like his own wings were tickling him. Crowley was more used to having the freedom to protectively circle his Angel as they walked, so felt a little restrained, and in the absence of being able to form a one-man protective barrier around his Aziraphale, his eyes darted constantly behind his shades, watching for anything suspicious.

The patisserie was quite new, the pastry chef, or pâtissière was actually from Belgium, but had trained in Paris. It wasn’t the kind of place you went for a cheap breakfast, it had class, not to mention an actual goddess sitting, reading a paper, at a gingham-clothed table out the front in the autumn sunshine. A pot of hot tea sat in front of her, but was untouched. Crowley led Aziraphale to the table and sat down with her. “Earl Grey for Zira?” she queried, placing the paper down. (Crowley flinched, but she didn’t know better, he supposed).

“Oh, yes please” beamed Aziraphale. She pushed the pot and cup over toward him. “Oh, oh no it’s alright, I shan’t take yours, I can wait for a fresh pot” he flustered.

She looked at him steadily. “That one IS for you” she explained patiently. “I don’t drink it myself anyway”.

Aziraphale, ever trying to be polite replied “you haven’t tried it? I mean strictly speaking we don’t NEED to either, but it’s nice!”

Odessa supressed a smile. “Not quite the same hardware I’m afraid. It’s not a case of need or want, this corporation doesn’t – can’t, take your pick. I’m not an angel. Crowley DID tell you about me, didn’t he?”

Aziraphale licked his lips nervously. “Oh yes, of course, yes, sorry, Forget my own head next.”

A waiter arrived with a steaming cup of coffee for Crowley and set it by his elbow. Crowley raised an eyebrow at Odessa. “How did you know how I take my coffee, and how Aziraphale takes his tea, omniscient?” The waiter re-appeared with a plate filled with a selection of the finest French pastries, and withdrew.

Odessa smiled slightly. “Please, Crowley, a woman must have some secrets. Anyhow, I’m terribly sorry, Zira...” (Crowley flinched again, and noticed Aziraphale’s eye twitch.) “...I didn’t introduce myself properly, I suppose I can now thanks to Crowley, it’s made it a little easier having a name to use anyway.” She held out a hand to the angel. “I’m Odessa for now, I suppose. Still getting used to it, mind. Might change it if something better crops up, but it’ll do for the moment.” Aziraphale shook her hand, it was strong, and… tingled slightly. He sipped at the Earl Grey, then placed his cup down and idly rubbed at a smudge on the rim while Crowley addressed Odessa.

“So it was obviously you who left the note, was there anything in particular you wanted?”

“To meet Zira of course.” She smiled warmly at the angel, whose lips inexplicably tingled, which was disconcerting.

"Um, _Aziraphale_, if you don't mind, thank you." He sipped a little more tea and nibbled a pastry, noticing Crowley’s eyes fixing on him behind his shades as he ate. He wasn’t a complete fool, he knew Crowley … enjoyed … watching him eat. On occasion you could see his knuckles turning white as he gripped the tablecloth in his hand and watched, not realising that in some lights the shades did not completely conceal his expression. Aziraphale found it amusing, and ever so slightly thrilling, to be able to have this effect on someone, and would be lying if he said he didn’t play up to it on purpose. His mind was wandering, back to the situation at hand. He coughed and turned back to Odessa, who was trying to conceal an amused little smile herself. Honestly, anyone could see the chemistry between those two when Zira was eating, hell the astronauts on the _International Space Statio_n could probably see it.

“So, um, Odessa… daylight…?” Aziraphale managed to get out.

“Not my problem” she responded. “Theirs, yes, but not mine. There’s a load of nonsense in popular culture about them already. There are some things that do harm them, besides me of course, but even of those that do work, they don’t apply to me. You could take one out with holy water as easily as you could a demon if you wanted. I’d happily swim in it.” She winked at him here, and carried on. “There are one or two aspects they co-incidentally share with some demons, but it’s more likely a case of convergent evolution than anything else – they’re a completely different species.”

  
“I’m not from among them either. I was called into being from their consciousness some time a few thousand years ago, so not being from the same origin, I don’t share demonic aspects, although I can fake them if I want to. I could summon wings like yours or Crowley’s if I wanted to, or go for some more traditional bat wings if I felt like it, but I don’t. Wings are more for angels and demons than for gods. Anyhow, vampires are NOT what you need to worry about, they have zero interest in you, I am absolutely certain of that, and even if any did get curious – I’d ensure it was terminal curiosity.”

Aziraphale became distracted again by the fact that he noticed for the last few moments that Crowley’s leg was in contact with his under the tablecloth. Not actively reaching out to touch his – just his knee resting lazily to one side against the angel’s thigh. The warmth and weight of it felt… nice. And secretive, and slightly thrilling.

“Back to the subject in hand, do either of you suspect anything specific from your former… employers?” Her glance flicking between them with an amused expression at their blushes that they had no idea were so obvious.

  
“N… no, no.. nothing as yet” stumbled Aziraphale. “We’d be guessing if we said otherwise. It’s just a general sense of unease. Neither of us were given any kind of speech saying ‘ok, you’re free to go now, do what you like’, we were just left hanging, ignored but … there was a definite… atmosphere… you might say. Furious politeness that won’t necessarily last. That’s what’s got us so uneasy I suppose – not knowing.”

Odessa nodded. “I see. The bastards probably know that’s part of the punishment to be honest –leaving you stewing in your own juices. Psychological manipulation – if they can wear you down with uncertainty and fear of the unknown, you might make easier targets for more physical action later. But in all honesty they’re probably just trying to decide how to take you down. How WOULD you think they’d try, if they did? What’s their modus operandi with this kind of thing?”

Crowley’s turn to shrug now. “Well last time they just bashed us over the head with a crowbar and hauled us off, in broad daylight no less. Mortals didn’t really notice anything unusual of course – they don’t tend to be able to see supernatural stuff happening around them.”

“I see. So if they DO try anything, we might have to be a bit more forceful in getting the point across, rather than just insinuating that you’re immune to holy water and infernal flame, and get some kind of concrete agreement in writing that they WILL leave you alone, rather than just a nod of the head.”

Crowley couldn’t imagine how one could get a point across to Satan himself, but the Goddess seemed pretty calm about it, hopefully that meant she had some kind of confidence in her ability to deal with it, which was pretty mind blowing in itself.

“So – allies?” Odessa questioned.

“Huh? Um, well we only just met you and…"

“No, who else do you already have on your side, Crowley?”

“With all due respect, madam”, interjected Aziraphale, “Crowley has a point, we don’t know you half as well as you appear to know us, and I don’t feel entirely comfortable telling you the names of any humans who may have assisted us in averting Armageddon, for their own safety if nothing else.”

“Fair enough. I don’t need to meet them yet, but It’s probably worthwhile you having a discussion with them as well about contingency plans. Any humans gutsy enough to join forces with you two and stand up to the Devil himself has a lot of fortune on their side. Besides, they may think up ideas to help deal with any threats. Think on it, discuss amongst yourselves. I’ll be in touch, enjoy the rest of your breakfast, boys.”

She touched each of them lightly on the shoulder as she left, stalking across the street to a large, low early 90s saloon car, so dark green it was almost black, it frankly looked slightly demonic. Crowley drew a sharp breath in admiration as he laid eyes on it. Odessa got in and turned the engine over with an earthy growl, and cruised off. Aziraphale felt a slight tugging sensation in the pit of his belly, as Crowley’s knee quivered slightly against his thigh at the noise. “What is it, Crowley?”

“Ngk… uh… pretty rare car, nice. It’s a Lotus Carlton. 3.6 litre straight 6 with twin turbochargers, 377BHP and 0-60 in about 5 seconds. It was the fastest production car in the world in it’s day, so controversially fast that the government tried to get it banned from the roads. I hate to admit it, but without any magical intervention in the mix, it’d eat the Bentley for breakfast**.”

Most of that flew over the top of Aziraphale’s head, He hadn’t been asking what the car was, he had been meaning to ask what was making Crowley quiver – which by the sounds of it, turned out to be the car. The numbers didn’t mean anything to him, but it was clear that they did to Crowley, and he was Having A Moment™, an appreciative one this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I stand by my headcanon that Crowley's kink is watching Aziraphale eat...  
... Aziraphale's kink is tormenting Crowley by eating decadently at him and watching him squirm. 
> 
> ... no, I'm not sorry. 
> 
> ** Neither am I sorry that I shoehorned a Vauxhall Lotus Carlton into this story. It had to be done - that car is the very epitome of demonic chaos. All that Crowley says is true - it was so controversial that the government really DID debate in parliament and try to get it banned for being too fast. They wanted the top speed limiting from 180mph as they thought it too dangerous. If Crowley didn't already drive the Bentley, I'm pretty sure the Carlton would be on his shopping list. It was THE car to have at the time that the original book was set, rare and powerful. Nowadays an engine alone will set you back over £20k. A whole car starts at £100K. One day, I will have one. (probably not, but meh, I can dream).


	5. You fancied a quick nibble?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale quite fancies a nibble, Crowley enjoys it. Prepare for heart melts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> food play, fully clothed consensual affection

Ambling back to the bookshop, holding hands again, as a few raindrops began to fall, Aziraphale lifted his head to Crowley. “Do you think she’s right, about involving the humans in this?”

  
Crowley shrugged, undecided. “I’m not comfortable putting them in danger, Angel. If our sides realise we are still even in contact with them and have any kind of feelings of friendship to any of them, they’d likely become targets too, possibly even hostages. I don’t like it.”

Aziraphale nodded agreement. “You’re right I suppose. It’s just she got me thinking – Anathema may not have a book of handy prophecies any more, but she IS still a witch, maybe nowhere near as powerful as Agnes must have been, but she’s not nearly as normal as she thinks she is – you could feel that from her too, couldn’t you?” Crowley nodded back, stopped, and held the bookshop door open for his angel. It was worth thinking about. As Aziraphale stepped through the door, Crowley followed, placing his hand gently on the angel’s lower back as he stepped through behind him. The butterflies returned to his stomach at the touch, and felt Aziraphale’s breath catch momentarily at the contact.

  
Aziraphale had brought home a little box of pastries from the café to enjoy at home later, flicked the kettle on and sat back at his desk, whilst Crowley collapsed in an ungainly heap on the comfortable sofa – all loose limbs and angles, and yet still effortlessly elegant. Aziraphale felt his heart clench slightly at the sight. “Are you quite sure I can’t tempt you to try one of these, dear?” he asked, proffering the fancy little box. He wished Crowley would enjoy food with him more.

Crowley sighed and rolled his eyes. “O-KAY, Angel” He’d do anything for him, really. “Gimme”.

Aziraphale’s smile quirked into a mischievous little grin and the corners of his eyes wrinkled in delight. He knelt down next to the sofa, released the ribbon on the box and lifted out a small square of brittle syrupy pastry – a Turkish recipe baklava, dripping with honey and rose syrup and dusted with ground pistachios. Crowley reached out for it, but Aziraphale gently pushed his arm down with his free hand and looked into his eyes. Curious, Crowley waited to see what he would do. Aziraphale leaned forward and brought the morsel to Crowley’s lips, feeding it to him directly from his own fingers. Crowley’s loins twitched and he tried not to squirm at the frission he was feeling. He accepted the sweet delicacy, allowing his lips to brush Aziraphale’s fingers for a moment. The angel tried to suppress a little shiver, his eyes darting to the side in an endearing display of coyness, pursing his lips.

Aziraphale went to take his hand away, but Crowley responded by gently holding his wrist instead, while he chewed on the baklava, appreciating it, and watching his angel’s face for reaction as he did. Mouthful consumed, he leaned forward slightly to lick the syrupy residue from those angelic fingers slowly, not breaking eye contact. Aziraphale was definitely breaking out in a sweat, the thought of which made Crowley feel decidedly warm under the collar himself, hearing the angel’s breath catch in his throat.

Crowley had tempted plenty of mortals in his time on earth, it was, after all, part of his job description – he had a far more handsome countenance than most of the denizens of hell, which made seduction easy for him, regardless of the gender of the target. He’d enjoyed it, certainly, but he’d be lying if said he hadn’t been thinking of Aziraphale every single time, and how he’d love to try out some of the skills he had developed on his innocent angel. This opportunity was just TOO perfect to pass up. His heart was hammering but he tried to retain an aura of cool as much as he could.

Sitting up a little more, he released Aziraphale’s hand, and reached into the box, selecting another tasty morsel, and then offering it up to the angelic lips, still keeping eye contact. That perfect pink tongue flicked out nervously over soft lips as Aziraphale considered for a split second, and then opened his mouth to accept the offering. He followed Crowley’s lead, and let his lips linger on those elegant slim fingers, sucking the sweetness off them as he accepted the pastry. Crowley smiled a lop-sided lazy smile and watched him chew, then swallow. “You… have a little crumb…” his serpentine eyes locked on those lips. Leaning forward, he touched Aziraphale’s cheek gently, stilling his nervousness, and leaned in to kiss the crumb from the corner of his lips.

He didn’t draw back more than a centimetre or two, to judge how the angel felt under his hands. He could feel trembling, and short soft rapid breaths. He couldn’t help himself and leaned back in, to place the gentlest of kisses directly on Aziraphale’s lips. Crowley felt hands touching his shoulder, and his neck, not allowing him to pull backwards, tentative at first, but holding a little stronger as the confidence grew. His belly was on fire, his heart hammering in a determined attempt to escape his chest, his arms felt weak. Aziraphale relaxed into the kiss and softly kissed back, hesitating and unsure, but undoubtedly enjoying it, his hand firm on the back of Crowley’s neck. They broke apart after a moment that felt like forever, and held each other’s steady gaze. “Thank you, Crowley” whispered the angel.

Tears pricked his golden eyes at that, and he looked away, sitting up slowly. “No, thank _you_, Angel”.

He felt shaky as he collapsed back into the sofa in an awkward, angular pile. He heard the click of the electric kettle finishing its boil and turning off, prompting Aziraphale to remember himself and bustle out of the room, flustered but clearly happy. So, that was it, that’s what it felt like to kiss an angel – the world didn’t stop spinning, Aziraphale didn’t suddenly fall down into the pit of hell, Crowley didn’t burst into infernal flame, even if he felt like his insides had, metaphorically. He guessed it was ok – they were allowed to love, there wasn’t any demonic or heavenly intervention programmed in to stop it happening, presumably no one ever thought it’d be necessary, or even possible. He’d spent millennia worrying over it, afraid to make contact with the angel in case he hurt him somehow, or caused him to fall, but somehow now he felt that it wouldn’t happen, and had taken the risk. He was glad he had.

Aziraphale returned from the little kitchenette behind the office area, carrying two steaming mugs – one cocoa, one black coffee. Rather than returning to his desk, he placed both cups on the coffee table, and nudged Crowley’s knee with his elbow, causing him to fold up obediently into a (slightly) more conventional seating position, making room for Aziraphale to sit beside him on the sofa. That was new.

Aziraphale sat back with a contented little sigh, and once he seemed settled, Crowley readjusted his long legs, draping them to rest across the angel’s soft lap, whereupon Aziraphale in turn rested his hand on one knee as he sipped his cocoa contentedly. Crowley closed his eyes and tipped his head back to the arm of the sofa, relaxing down and enjoying the moment of tranquillity between them.


	6. Panic! At the book fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale indulges in a spot of light shopping, Crowley gets into a Spot Of Bother.

Sunday morning dawned cold and sharp, a frost in the air, condensation forming on the inside of the ancient single glazed windows of the flat above the bookshop. Crowley ambled downstairs to find his angel wrapping up ready to go out, with a warm woollen tartan scarf wound around his neck. “Going anywhere interesting then?”

Aziraphale looked up and smiled warmly at him. “There’s a PBFA book fair* on over in Camden that I wanted to peruse. I’d invite you, but it’s being held in an old church**, I don’t know if it’s deconsecrated or not, but either way I didn’t think you’d feel comfortable there.” Bless this sweet angel, always thinking of him.

“Nah, not my scene anyway, I’ll probably head over to my place, check the auto watering system for the plants is still working ok.” He felt bad to have abandoned them, but he still felt distinctly uncomfortable there now, and didn’t know what Aziraphale would think about a veritable jungle of vegetation taking over the bookshop.

He closed the distance between them and held the soft angel by his shoulders, gazing into those clear blue eyes, admiring the soft halo of blonde hair framing his head, he followed his desires and reached out to stroke his hands through it slowly, as Aziraphale shivered under his touch. Crowley leant forwards and they met in a slow lingering kiss. “Have fun, angel, see you later”. Aziraphale smiled and GLOWED. Crowley could swear he could feel the wave of pure love radiating out from Aziraphale, like a warm wash of tropical waves over his heart. His hands dropped from shoulders down to the angel’s hands, giving both a gentle squeeze before letting him go.

“Goodbye, dear, see you later”, with a coy wink, Aziraphale bustled out into the frosty morning air and was gone.

Crowley sighed and headed out too, using the key he’d been given to lock up the shop, and collapsing his angular frame into the comforting soft Connolly leather*** of the Bentley’s interior, its scent filling his nostrils and relaxing him instantly. Turning the key, eliciting the same small smile he experienced every time the engine started, and then he headed over to Mayfair, at a slightly more relaxed and sedate pace than he usually employed. The Bentley decided that Queen’s “good old fashioned lover boy” was an appropriate choice this morning, he smirked and went with it, sliding through the sparse Sunday morning traffic with ease.

Distracted by thinking about recent experiences with Aziraphale, and more relaxed than he’d been in WEEKS, Crowley was not his regular hyper-vigilant self when he pulled up outside his apartment block, and didn’t notice the builder’s van parked on double yellow lines off to the side. It didn’t occur to him to think it might be strange for tradespeople to be working on a Sunday morning, and by the time the tazer had locked him into an uncontrollable full-body spasm on the floor, it was too late. A steel toe-capped boot met his skull, hard, and the world went white.

Aziraphale felt a peculiar tug in the pit of his stomach. He had just picked up an original, and huge, copy of George Stubbs’ “The anatomy of the horse” from the 1700s****, from a stall in the book fair. A pretty rare tome nowadays, filled with extraordinarily detailed diagrams of equine anatomy by a pioneer in the field. Although he liked to collect primarily religious texts and prophecies, it was by no means his only interest – he stocked anything rare and valuable, and whilst he would use any means short of actual physical violence to avoid selling one of his main treasures in the religious and prophetic category, he took a more relaxed approach to other genres, and would buy and sell books that humans found interesting to keep some pocket money coming in, for those things that miracles are just too frivolous for, money was indeed, a necessary evil sometimes. This one would make a good investment, although the £700 price tag wasn’t small, he could make a profit on it, he was sure.

He had just turned to locate the stall holder when he heard a screech of tyres outside, followed shortly after by Odessa striding into the church, making a beeline for him. He was alarmed at her intensity, especially as he had only met her once and didn’t have Crowley with him for security, he placed the book back on the table behind him as she approached, unsure what to do.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

“What? Who?” Oh, she must mean Crowley?

“Crowley of course, I felt something then he dropped off the radar, I can’t feel where he is, only you. And I don’t think that means anything good, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale’s stomach plummeted, and the blood drained from his face, his legs felt like water. “No…” he gasped “no, no no no nononono…” His head spun and he felt faint, then felt her strong hand gripping his elbow, steadying him, stopping him falling.

“Come with me” she growled, brooking no debate, and piloted him out of the church to the Lotus Carlton parked haphazardly by the kerb outside. Aziraphale collapsed into the leather seat, his mind racing a million miles an hour. Too stunned to know what to do next, he felt her lean across him and was mildly alarmed as her face came closer to his and her arm reached up to his shoulder, what on earth was she doing? He then saw the seatbelt cross his line of vision as she plucked it from over his shoulder and brought it across his unprotesting body, to click firmly into place by his hip, before gunning the engine and launching off in a brief squeal of tyre smoke. Aziraphale gasped and instinctively reached for what Crowley mockingly referred to as “the Jesus handle” –the grab handle above the door that a scared passenger could grab onto and yell “JESUS” when startled at the driving, not that Aziraphale ever uttered such blasphemies himself. It helped stop his body sliding across the seat as the car swerved aggressively through traffic. She certainly drove like Crowley, but it didn’t make him feel any better, it just hurt his heart more.

“Right, I need your input – if he’s dropped off the radar that means he’s not on this ethereal plane any more – he’s not on earth. Which means up or down, I can’t feel there, it’s not my territory. Who would have taken him – your side or his?”

Aziraphale looked at her, aghast. “You can’t mean it?” he gasped, “I don’t know, I truly don’t.” Something else had been tapping him on the metaphorical shoulder for the past few minutes. The thought sauntered up to his consciousness, thrust a note into his mental hand, and ran away. It read “radar?” He stared at her, hard. He may be a soft angel but his body had been built for war, he was stronger than he looked, and although slow to anger, he felt his muscles flex slightly as he challenged her. “What do you mean, ‘radar’? How did you know where I was, how do you know where Crowley… isn’t?”

She had the decency to look slightly guilty. “Kind of a supernatural tracking device, I suppose you’d call it. It’s the easiest way to try to keep you safe. Not fool proof of course, but it helps. It must have been sudden, if he’d been alarmed before whatever happened to him – happened, then I’d have had a heads up by his change in demeanour, but something must have taken him by surprise before he could register what was going on, and then he was gone.”

“Tracking device?” Aziraphale demanded, feeling violated, “HOW? WHEN???” She glanced away and gritted her teeth, steering at speed around a road sweeping lorry, then drew breath slowly before she replied.

“I’m sorry, but if I’m going to help you, I had to do it. It just requires the tiniest droplet of my blood… in you. I marked Crowley when I gave him a quick kiss after biting my lip first.” Aziraphale looked both horrified and FURIOUS. She continued “and yours was the teacup, a little smear on the rim. I’m sorry, Aziraphale. I wanted to keep you safe, and I fully intend to, come hell or high water. I swear to you, we WILL get Crowley back. I promise.”

Aziraphale gaped, slightly mollified by her last sentence, but still feeling violated, deceived, and vaguely disgusted. Crowley hadn’t mentioned a kiss, but then he supposed he wouldn’t, under the circumstances, especially if it wasn’t his idea.

Odessa looked thoughtful. “How could we find out which direction they took him? Can you sniff out other angels and demons? We could capture one and torture the information out of it, perhaps?” Aziraphale stared at her, at a loss for words.

Eventually he gasped “Are you SERIOUS?” She nodded nonchalantly as if kidnapping a demon was just a walk in the park. Aziraphale thought about it for a moment before the logical solution struck him. “Back to the bookshop” he instructed, his jaw set in grim determination as to what he was about to attempt. The Carlton continued its headlong career along the frosty London streets back to Soho, engine growling like the anger that Aziraphale felt rumbling in his own chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * If you ever get chance to attend a PBFA event, I heartily recommend it - take lots of money, or if you can't resist temptation and have too many books already, maybe leave your wallet at home instead, it's safer that way. 
> 
> ** This is the very same old church that I was once whisked away to on a magical mystery tour by my partner, where he had arranged for me to meet the late, great, Sir Terry Pratchett himself (co-author of Good Omens), at a book signing organised by Camden Book Festival. It seemed a great London centric venue for this to get Aziraphale out of Soho to somewhere that interested him, that Crowley wouldn't neccesarily be able to go too. 
> 
> *** ok, I know way too much about cars in general, and the complexities of re-trimming the leather in antique Rolls Royces and Bentleys as well. I know people, ok? I may or may not also have a huge bag of cut-offs of genuine Rolls Royce Conolloy leather scraps from them for crafting purposes. One of the projects was a LARP sword scabbard made from the old leather arm rest from a classic rolls.
> 
> **** I had to shoehorn this one in here too, I won't apologise. Yes, I own this book, yes, it came from a PBFA book fair, yes it was *expensive*. Very expensive, but it has been incredibly special to my interests for many many years. I couldn't afford it of course, but it was valentine's day, and my partner wandered off at one point, then ambled back and placed the book into my hands. I cried. It's the most valuable tome in my collection, and my other half is a hopeless romantic.


	7. Don't forget the fire extinguisher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale invites company over. It gets messy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood, violence, you have been warned.

Back in the bookshop, Aziraphale straightened his clothes, throwing a disgruntled glance over at the goddess, who paced around the shop, taking too much interest in his precious books, he felt her gaze was rather lascivious toward some of them, that made him feel somewhat protective of his collection, normally it was only him who looked upon his treasures that way.

At the centre of the shop, he bent down and pulled the rug away, revealing the circle still chalked beneath it. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted but it was a start. Odessa looked over and understanding dawned on her face as she watched him take an old cloth and start rubbing out several of the sigils around the edge. “Go into the back kitchen and fetch me the tub of salt from the cupboard, if you would be so kind” Aziraphale ordered, brusquely. She complied and he heard her rummaging about, as he took out some chalk from a drawer, and began replacing the erased sigils with different ones. He didn’t want to summon the metatron, he needed something else.  
  
Odessa returned with the salt, he hoped there was enough. He finished chalking the symbols around the circle, and made a minor adjustment to a few other details, before pouring the salt in a circle over the top of one of the chalked circles, and fetching several candles from a shelf. With a presence of mind that had perhaps been missing the last time he did something like this, he ensured there was no paper immediately near the circle, and a fire extinguisher within easy reach, just in case. He paused, nervous sweat beginning to trickle down his spine and bead on his forehead. Yes, can’t be too careful. He went to the kitchen, and filled the empty kettle from the tap, then paused to hold his hands over it and mutter a blessing. A little holy water blessed by an angel was the kind of insurance he’d never dream of having on hand if Crowley had been anywhere near the shop, he couldn’t bear the thought of an accidental drop injuring him, but today it was a sensible precaution. He set the kettle down next to the fire extinguisher.

Now what? He wasn’t completely certain what words were needed to do things this way, he’d seen the sigils written down before, but had never had a reason, or desire, to summon an actual demon. He paced over to his shelves and cast his eyes along one until he found what he was looking for. He didn’t like touching this book, it felt very wrong, so instead he grasped it through the fabric of his scarf, and handed it to Odessa. “If you wouldn’t mind madam” he began, “would you turn to chapter 5 for me, looking for a page with a circle like this illustrated on it, there’s some Latin text below it I need to see.” The goddess didn’t appear unduly bothered by the sensation of holding the book, and located the correct page, holding it open for him to read, his lips twitching as he remembered the correct pronunciations he’d need to use for each word, then, squaring his shoulders up and setting his jaw, he marched back to the circle and lit the candles, then, glancing at the open book held up next to him, began to chant.

It wasn’t the same as he was used to, his skin crawled and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He felt chilled, and the room seemed to get darker. He hoped this wouldn’t leave any lasting occult effect on his floor. Within moments, the circle began to glow a dull red. Like a bad special effect, a shape began to flicker into view in the middle of the circle. It was tall, and muscular, and definitely demonic. Aziraphale quailed slightly, despite the precautions, he was scared. Odessa merely looked on in mild interest, but she did carefully fold the book closed, placed it gently aside on a table, then turned back to the circle and flexed her muscles slightly, eyes narrowing.

Feeling bolstered, Aziraphale addressed the apparition. “I bind and abjure thee, foul fiend, that thou mays’t not breach the sanctity of the circle of holding, nor cause harm to any here present.” The Demon cocked its head and looked at him enquiringly. Its voice buzzed with dark harmonics as it spoke.

“What dost thou demand of me… _ANGEL??? _“it’s voice expressing shock at the last word, it’s eyes widening in surprise at what it beheld standing in front of it. “WHY?” it asked. Aziraphale licked his lips nervously and tried to look braver than he felt.

“That is immaterial, you are conjured and bound, and must answer 3 questions put to you honestly.” The demon nodded, but was clearly confused. It had never been summoned by an angel before, it was unheard of.

“My name is Arkolomes, lizard of the pit and dark of the chasm, speak your questions.”  
  
Aziraphale stumbled into the first one. “Do you know where the demon Crowley is?”

“Yes.” Replied Arkolomes, smugly, and folded his arms.

Aziraphale realised his mistake, he’d asked the question wrong. He mentally kicked himself and carried on.

“Where IS the demon Crowley?”

“In hell”  
  
God damn this monosyballic demon.  
  
“WHERE in hell?”

“In a cell. This concludes your questions, angel” it replied, smirking at Aziraphale.  
  
Oh drat it. 3 questions answered, but not with anything as useful as they needed. He became aware of a deep, feral growling noise next to him, and a terrifying aura of menace rolled out across the room, he could swear his heart froze solid as the wave hit him, even though it wasn’t directed at him. He had thought the demon was scary, the demon was NOTHING compared to the apparition next to him now, advancing on the circle wrathfully, her eyes aflame*. She waved at the circle, causing it to flash a brilliant deep purple, and the demon yelped, recoiling. “You are now bound by MY rules, demon,” she growled. She used her foot to break the salt and smudge the chalk, then reached through the breach with her arm, her fingers extending into cruel claws, and GRABBED the demon by its throat, drawing it closer to her, terrified.

“MY rules – you will tell me, or I will not just discorporate you, I will destroy your soul utterly and forever, demon. WHERE, _EXACTLY, _IS CROWLEY?” The demon quailed and tried feebly to escape her grasp, as black blood dripped down its neck and spattered on the floorboards.

“He’s in the sixth circle, in one of the Black cells, I don’t know which one, I swear to you, they took him this morning, the news is all over hell, they’re celebrating and discussing what to do with him, I don’t know anything else, I swear, I swear, please, PLEASE…” it screamed as her grip tightened on its neck, claws sinking through the flesh. The goddess glared into the demon’s eyes.

“Thank you for telling me the truth. I have a confession to make… I lied. I’m taking your soul anyway” And with that she ripped him out of the circle entirely with superhuman strength, and ripped into his throat with her sharp canines, as Aziraphale quailed on the floor in terror.  
  
His wings had spontaneously emerged in his fear, and were held, shaking, over his head protectively as the scene unfolded before his horrified eyes. He wanted to look away but couldn’t tear his gaze from the horror. The Goddess was greedily gulping down the black blood with every indication of relish, as the demon went slack in her iron grip. With one last shudder, the demon went limp as it’s very soul was sucked from its body with the last of its blood, then it fell to the floor, and burned up briefly in a white flame that nonetheless left no mark on the floor, and dissolved into a pile of ash. Odessa stepped back, wiping black blood from her lips with her hand. “I needed that” she gasped.

Aziraphale was shaking, she looked down at him and softened, her eyes returned to normal and she reached out gently “Oh Aziraphale, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you too, you just got caught up in the crossfire, I’m so sorry… but I couldn’t let him return to hell and warn them we were coming.” He looked up at her.

“Y… you… you drank demon blood, and consumed it’s SOUL?” he asked shakily.

She nodded. “I was hungry, and I can. I may not want human blood, but demonic blood is just as good as vampire, possibly better. It’s more powerful, it’s … amazing. I admit I hadn’t actually done it before, but it felt right, I just _knew_ I could, I could smell it was ok, so I did. It’s like a can of sodding monster energy drink compared to a cola, that stuff is GOOD.” She looked at his expression, clearly not comforted by her explanation. “Oh Aziraphale, I’d never hurt you, I don’t know how anyone could, I’m here to protect you, and Crowley, and if that means torturing a demon to get answers, then that’s what I’ll do.”  
  
She reached forward again, eyes seeking his for permission, and, seeing no objection, ever so softly stroked the feathers at the top of his left wing by the joint. An instant wave of relief and gentleness washed through his body at the touch, it was warm, and comforting, and … safe. She withdrew her hand and hunkered down in front of him, examining his features carefully, confirming that he was recovered, then offered him a hand to help him up again. Aziraphale stood, and shook his wings carefully, not opening them to their full span within the confines of the bookshop lest they knock any books off tables or shelves. He folded them and with a brief roll of his shoulders and a shudder with his eyes closed, disappeared them into another ethereal plane, out of sight. He opened his eyes and glanced at her. “Thank you, I suppose. So, what next? Do you propose simply marching down there and demanding his release?” He smiled weakly. Then opened his eyes wider as she grinned back easily and replied

“Of course.”

“Wait… WHAT? You CANNOT be serious, that’s madness, you can’t just saunter into hell and tell the nearest demon ‘excuse me, I’m just here to break a rebellious demon out of prison, toodle pip’”  
  
She looked at him, amused. “Why ever not?” Aziraphale gaped at her. “I need a drink” he managed, and staggered off to the back room to find a bottle of something to steady his nerves. She sighed, and pinched out the candles one by one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * when I say “flaming eyes” it’s kind of literal. If you’ve watched the Neil Gaiman tv series “American gods”, it’s the same as both the Bison under the tree in Shadow Moon’s dreams, and the Djin in the taxi. If you haven’t watched it, google image search American Gods Bison and you should see.


	8. Planning Shenanigans (TM)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale gets an unwanted makeover, is reuinited with an ages-old acquaintance, and girds his loins.

The Goddess sat on the arm of the large sofa, stance a little too Crowley-esque for Aziraphale’s comfort, and observed him as he downed first a tumbler of 40 year old Glenturret single/single malt, and then poured another, and sat nursing it, looking slightly stunned.

“You’re serious?”

She nodded.

“Really serious?”

“M-hm.”

He rolled his eyes. Great, now he had a deity with a death-wish on his hands as well as a stolen serpent to rescue.

“Did I mention that you’re mad?”

“yup” she grinned.

He shook his head slowly, then she spoke again: “Well you’ve been there, when you did your little body swap trick, where’s the gate? We had better get moving.”

Aziraphale looked up in alarm. “What, NOW?”

“Carpe diem and all that, yes. If you dither too long you’ll only make yourself worry more than is necessary, lead the way, young man.” She stood and swept her arm toward the doorway.

Aziraphale stood up uncertainly, and then she laid a hand on his arm. “One moment – wings out, please.” The angel was confused, but complied, and looked warily at Odessa as she circled him with a critical look.

  
“I’ll need to make some temporary changes to your appearance, and give you a bit of metaphorical armour just in case” she muttered.

  
Then she was behind him, her hands on his wings, and a tingling wave of warmth cascaded through his body, prickling goosebumps all over him. He instinctively flinched his wings forward from the touch, which wasn’t the best idea as it swung is primaries into his peripheral field of vision and he damned near had a heart attack.

THEY WERE BLACK.

“WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT ON EARTH DID YOU DO TO ME?” Sheer panic rising in his voice, then noticing that his clothing had also changed into something nondescript and dark, topped with a grubby trench coat. He spun around to her, alarm etched into every line of his face.

“_Relax_, Aziraphale” she soothed. “You haven’t fallen, it’s just a temporary illusion, to make you look a bit demonic. I’m pretty sure an angel just waltzing down into hell is going to stand out like a bar of soap in a coal scuttle, we need a chance to get at least some of the way incognito before the excrement hits the extractor.” With this she placed her palm flat on his chest, and he felt a WHUMP of power hit his body, almost knocking him a step backwards, although he only swayed on the spot. “And that,” she continued, “was a bit of metaphysical protection for your corporeal form, should bounce any hellfire off you for a while. Oh and this might help you feel a little better…” She grabbed an empty screw top wine bottle that was discarded by the sofa, scooped up the kettle of holy water from the floor, and decanted it into the bottle, before passing it back to Aziraphale.

This done, she held the empty kettle and with a twitch of her eyebrow, caused it to spout into sodium-bright flame as it burned and melted into oblivion. “Safety precaution – you wouldn’t want to go forgetting and accidentally brewing Crowley a cup of coffee using that kettle when he gets home would you?” Aziraphale shook his head, weakly, and shivered the disconcerting black wings back into the ethereal plane out of sight.

“Oh, and by the way, your hair is dark and grey now, just in case you catch a glimpse of your reflection on the way there and freak out at that as well”. Aziraphale ran his hands through his hair, feeling a slightly more unruly thatch of curls up there than normal, but of course couldn’t see his own head. He sighed, drawing his hands down his face, and felt unfamiliar stubble on his usually clean shaven face as well – somewhere between long stubble and short beard. He felt _untidy_*.

“What’s the address?” Odessa was already striding out of the shop, so the angel scurried to follow her before he lost his nerve.

“201 Bishopsgate” he gasped “Broadgate Tower. Don’t we need weapons or something? The holy water is only going to stop a demon or two if I throw it, what’ll happen after that?” He clambered into the Carlton, and did his own seatbelt this time.

Odessa put the key in the ignition and paused, looking thoughtful. “Your flaming sword, the courier took it away after the failed Armageddon didn’t he?” Aziraphale frowned at her.

“How do you KNOW all this?”

“Well,” she replied, gunning the accelerator, “a fair amount was visible by the other gods on a separate ethereal plane where we can observe what happens on earth, other stuff, stuff particular to you and Crowley, I can pick up here and there by other means, please don’t ask me to explain, you’d probably only get weirded out anyway. So – where do you expect the articles of Armageddon, the crown, scales and sword, might go when they’re not in use? Might you have an inkling of understanding about it?” Aziraphale expected it was just another ethereal plane, or at least cupboard, somewhere between existences, created for just such a purpose, but struggled to know how he’d put this concept into words.

“Um…” he began, then her hand was on his arm and he felt a prickling sensation behind his eyeballs, like his brain was itching. She dropped his arm and replaced her hand on the steering wheel again, thankfully, before removing it again to downshift and accelerate past a bus.

“I got the concept, I’ve never done this before, especially while driving, but I’m going to try something out. If it’s been recently accessed, there might be some kind of energy trail that links it back to the earth, like a fading scent. If it’s associated with you as well, then the sword itself might have an echo marker that could help.”

She cocked her head and gritted her teeth, rolled the window down and extended an arm out, which _disappeared_ as it left the confines of the car – her arm simply ended at the window aperture, her forearm and hand gone.

Aziraphale gasped as an Audi pulled out in front of them, but without missing a beat, Odessa’s knee rose up to brace the steering wheel whilst she left foot braked, double clutched and downshifted with her free hand, before grabbing the wheel again in one smooth movement**. Her other arm still fishing out of the open window into nowhere somehow.

After a few minutes she scrunched up her face and_ pulled_. Her arm reappeared in the car from whatever dimension it had been rummaging in, and pulled forth Aziraphale’s gladius, handing it to him with a hand like ice, then grabbing the wheel again with a pained expression. “If I ever tell you I’m going to try doing that again, please hit me around the head with a five iron” she grimaced, as the frost slowly dripped and melted off her arm. “That was NOT pleasant. There were… things in there. Not so nice when all you can do is feel them and not see them, but they did NOT feel nice.” Aziraphale grasped his sword and goggled at her and noticed a ragged tear in the skin on her arm, about 8 inches long, slowly healing over, but already he could feel the ice melting from the handle and a familiar warmth suffusing it as it recognised his grip. Once his, it would always be truly his, whether he liked it or not. He always preferred a quill to a sword however, so the attraction between angel and inanimate object was not mutual.

A few minutes later they pulled up in front of the soaring office block that housed the main lobby with escalators to heaven and hell. No physical guards graced the lobby, they weren’t needed –humans simply didn’t notice it, so no one wandered in who shouldn’t be there, and any non-supernatural entities attempting to use the escalator (they’d only be able to perceive the UP escalator anyway) would just find themselves in an empty office building if they tried it. Only supernatural beings could actually use them to transport between planes of reality.

Aziraphale’s legs were weak as he staggered out of the car, clinging to his sword as a drowning man might cling to driftwood to stay afloat. “Lead the way, ‘Demon’” Odessa commanded, stepping aside for him to take the lead, something he had never felt less like doing, but damnit all, he had been a warrior angel once, like it or not, and he had shown bravery in many situations when the tacks were down, even if he didn’t like it. _CROWLEY_ was in there, and he needed help. The thought bolstered him, he HAD to save his… no, not his demon, not just friend, his soulmate. Yes. And he’d be damned if he didn’t step up and DO something about it, he really would. He flared his nostrils, rolled his shoulders and lowered his head as he strode forwards with the beginnings of confidence that he wasn’t entirely sure he felt. Behind him, Odessa smiled to herself as she eased back on the nudge of confidence she had pushed towards him. Aziraphale had only used the down escalator once, dragged by demons down for Crowley’s trial, in Crowley’s body. But from the memory he could feel how he had to approach it in order for the transition between the mirrored floor and the escalator to become reality. It helped if he closed his eyes and stepped forward. As he did, he felt Odessa grasp his coat so she could follow, and they descended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Ok, I basically made him look like 2019 Michael Sheen. Think of his Great British Bake-Off look. I love feral Michael Sheen Shenanigans, or should that be "Sheenanigans"? Anyhow, he's an adorable scruff. 
> 
> ** Kids, please do not try this at home. Unless your name is Stig Blomqvist or Erik Carlsson, I don't recommend it in your mum's corsa. If you really DO want to learn some of this stuff, I recommend an advanced/defensive driving course, try the skid pan experience while you're there too, it's fun.


	9. Raise Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Folks, it's gonna get messy. An angel attempts to be as impolite as possible. Aziraphale finds his inner Cherubim and licks some serious butt in a rampage of holy wrath, with much smiting. Crowley has a surprise. Odessa enjoys herself far too much and discovers the supernatural equivalent to monster engergy drinks. Literally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BLOOD - lots of blood, profanity, implied but not actual drug use references, extreme violence, mention of torture

The stench hit them first, then the noise. It wasn’t as hot as you’d expect, rather damp and dripping, although this was the inside of the head office building. No doubt the outside was more hellish. Aziraphale kept the sword concealed out of sight for the moment, and wondered if he should have his wings out or not, to look more demonic, but casting his gaze around at the disinterested demons around him, it seemed they didn’t bother, so neither would he yet.

Much like a beehive, once inside, the residents didn’t pay any attention to interlopers who had infiltrated the hive, once they were past the entrance, everyone just assumed they were supposed to be there, they had other things on their mind than small talk. Aziraphale noticed that Odessa had shifted her appearance a little too. Her hair was now black, but with red, orange and gold at the ends, vibrant and dyed in the manner of licking flames reaching up from the bottom toward her head. Her canine teeth were once again prominent, and she stalked forward with practised ease, looking every inch as if she belonged there. Aziraphale straightened a little and tried to follow suit.  
  
“What do we do now?” he hissed sidelong at her, before glancing across at her pensive expression as she studied the demons scurrying about – humanoid ones and more animalistic creatures here and there, on unknown errands. No, surely not… “Please tell me you are NOT considering grabbing and torturing another damned demon for directions” he hissed.

She looked at him in mild surprise then sighed. “Ok, I won’t tell you” she replied with a mischievous grin.

“NO!” Aziraphale insisted – “we are NOT doing that, not unless we have to, absolutely NOT!”

She shrugged in acquiescence “you’re no fun” she complained, mildly, and gently punched his arm. Aziraphale shot her an irritated look and walked forward to one of the smaller, less terrifying looking demon creatures, it looked rotund and vaguely crocodilian, and ever so slightly like a football. At least he’d have a chance to punt it away if it tried anything, at least before the legions of hell descended on them, he supposed.

_Don’t say “excuse me”, DON’T say “excuse me” be DEMONIC, damn you, you can DO this! _He strode up to the crocodilian minion. “Oi, sixth circle, which way?” he demanded, as roughly as he felt was appropriate, and was gratified to see the creature not appear to take any umbrage at the rude tone.

It waved in the general direction of a bank of elevators down the corridor. “3rd lift, turn right as you exit, follow the smell of sulphur and the screams” it grinned and winked it’s green reptilian eye toward Odessa.

The angel’s heart was hammering in his chest, he was amazed he wasn’t shaking with every pound of it pumping blood around his body. They stood in the lift as it slowly descended, light flickering, walls grimy and rattling in an alarming way, with an occasional screeching grinding noise as metal scraped on metal somewhere in the lift shaft. Aziraphale didn’t know what to expect, he grasped the sword under his coat, and felt the reassuring weight of a wine bottle full of angel-blessed holy water in the capacious pocket on the other side.

What if they were too late? What if they’d done something to his Crowley already? He felt a lump rise in his throat and tears prick at his eyes, blurring his vision, when he felt a warm hand laid on his back, right between where his wings would be, and a wave of calm suffused his body, bolstering his resolve. He relaxed into the comforting touch, and felt a trickle of power feeding into him, he felt stronger than he had in centuries, and his fear began to morph into a dull anger at the creatures who had stolen HIS Crowley, who had the audacity to think they could get away with it. He would defend his soulmate to his very death, he knew he would, and he began to think that he COULD. He drew a deep breath and blinked the tears from his eyes, swallowed and rolled his shoulders back, feeling the hand lift off his back as he did so. The lift lurched and screeched again, but he didn’t care anymore, he glared at the doors and prepared himself to deal with whatever lay on the other side of them.

The lift ground to a halt after what felt like an eternity, and the doors shuddered open with a complaining howl of ungreased mechanisms. Aziraphale stepped out of the lift, and now his eyes looked out on something more akin to what most people would think of as “hell” – sharp black volcanic rocks, pools of molten sulphur, some of it burning with a blue flame, and… oh. The hellfire. He swallowed. The demons on this level weren’t as packed in together as in the office upstairs, but that didn’t mean there were less of them – just more spread out, each going about some private task of its own. Odessa stepped up beside him and shared his gaze, analysing the situation. Where next?

Off to the right in the distance he spied what they must be looking for, a dark, ugly concrete building streaked with filth that had the look of a prison about it. It wasn’t where he’d come for the trial – that had been in the office area up top, and he’d been taken straight to the audience chamber without delay. The small round demon had been right about the screams, although distant they tore at his very soul in their torment and he shuddered uneasily.

It seemed that down here the demons were less concerned about appearing even vaguely human, and were more relaxed about things like wings, claws, tentacles, huge sharp teeth, and, it would seem, clothing being rather optional. He swallowed and wished he hadn’t looked *there* at the nearest demon whose clothes hung in tatters as it shovelled dark sand from a wheelbarrow with a flat tyre into a flaming pit for no sensible reason that Aziraphale could discern. The sight of what lurked there would haunt him for weeks.

They started striding forward as Aziraphale rebuilt his head of steam and righteous anger at all that surrounded him. His bravery was coming in waves, he knew he had to keep it together for his Crowley. He couldn’t give up now. The building loomed closer, squat and forbidding. A couple of particularly ugly demons flanked the main door, more for appearance sake than anything, they looked disinterested. Their skins were mottled black and red with patches of warty texture resembling bubbled cooled lava, but they sported long, _sharp, _eagle like claws, and shark like teeth in too-wide smiles, eyes black as openings into a void, with no visible sclera.

Odessa kept her head up and made to walk between them as if she had every right to be there, a trick that tends to work surprisingly well in many situations, but not this one. A strongly muscled arm flashed out and gripped hers, claws digging cruelly into her flesh as he dragged her to a stop. Aziraphale tensed and slipped his hand under his coat. _Sword or holy water? If I get one there’s still the other one, maybe water first, then use the sword on the other while it’s distracted by its fallen colleague? _But before he could decide, Odessa’s face lit up in a delighted smile, as if she’d been waiting for this moment all day… hell, all _week. _

She turned her bright countenance on the guard demon gripping her arm, and Aziraphale’s eyes widened in acknowledgement of what was happening behind those eyes, he saw the madness stir. _God above, she’s ENJOYING this!_ He almost felt sorry for the demon, as Odessa tipped her head on one side, still smiling that bright smile.

“What d’you think you’re doin’ comin in here, bitch?” the Guard growled. “You’re not allowed in ‘ere”.

“That’s where you’re wrong, sweetie” she responded, and faster than Aziraphale could blink, shot her own hand out to the demon’s throat, sinking her own long claws through the flesh there and _ripping. _As the demon released his grasp in shock, she grabbed the offending arm that had held her, and bracing against his torso, ripped it clean off at the shoulder, splattering vile black demon blood in a wide arc. Some hit Aziraphale in the face, and as he turned his face away he saw the other guard raising his own arms to attack. Time had turned to treacle. _Now or never, Cherubim. _He drew the gladius out at what felt like a snail’s pace, it responded to his hand immediately, holy fire flaring up the blade in reaction to a millennia-old instinct.

The demon’s attention switched to Aziraphale, and seeing the sword, it summoned a handful of hellfire and cast it straight at the angel’s chest. Aziraphale flexed his wings out reactively, bringing them out in front of him to try to ward the strike, a split second of consternation as he glimpsed their black shade again, alien and unfamiliar. The reflex was pointless, he thought – hellfire would burn straight through his wings anyway, no matter what colour they were, it was just as much instinct as flinching from a blow that made them come out, but then the flame HIT.

And rolled over him.

He braced for the pain.

Nothing.

Aziraphale lowered his wings from his line of vision again – it hadn’t harmed him. By rights he should be a glowing ember by now, and in that instant he recalled the warding action the the Goddess had performed on him before they left. He had no idea how long it would last, if it would be worn down by repeated exposure or not – she hadn’t told him, maybe she didn’t know, but it had given him the moment’s reprise he needed, as the Demon looked baffled, and he thrust the blade forward into its heart.

The screech almost tore his eardrums to pieces.

Odessa turned to him, dropping her demon’s arm on its prone corpse, and grinned. Her eyes were full of fire again, and her fangs if anything had grown even longer, her claws were dripping black ichor on the floor, she lifted one hand to her face and licked a claw slowly. “Oh YESSSSSSSSS”, she tipped her head back and then _howled _in triumph. She looked like someone who had just taken a hit of cocaine and had too much energy that needed out. “Right. NEXT!” She bellowed, and strode forwards. Emboldened by the adrenaline, Aziraphale hefted his blade and charged after her.

“CROWLEY! CROWLEY, WHERE THE _HELL_ ARE YOU?” 

A slightly smaller demon emerged from a side door in their path, confused at the sudden activity. Without hesitating, Odessa grabbed it and lifted it up, sank her fangs into its stubby neck and drained it in a couple of gulps. It fell limply on the floor and dissolved into ash. Another ran out, she roared and fell upon that one too, another two came from a door on the left, and Aziraphale despatched the first with a forehand slash of his sword, and the second with the backhand swing. It was clumsy, but sufficient to leave it mortally wounded, writhing on the floor.

With every demon she drained, Odessa grew more berserk, as If she was taking hit after hit of amphetamines with each one she despatched. “FUCK THIS IS *GOOD*” she screamed, flinging another corpse aside. She stormed forward as a double set of doors opened ahead of them and disgorged a veritable platoon of lesser demons who charged straight at them. Aziraphale didn’t count them but there must have been at least twenty. _Wine time _his subconscious whispered to him. He grabbed the bottle and flung it overarm like a Molotov cocktail, right into the centre of the group, where it smashed, splashing every demon in range with burning holy water. They screamed and hissed and burned, whilst those who escaped the splash zone cowered back in alarm briefly.  
  
The hesitation was all it took. Odessa strode forwards “I CAN FEEL HIM AGAIN, AZIRAPHALE! HE’S HERE!” she grabbed the nearest demon and ripped it in half with superhuman strength then grabbed another. Aziraphale sliced a third in two, kicked a smaller demon into the wall where its head smashed, the angel growled as the holy _wrath_ filled his veins with fire. Crowley was HERE.

“I’M COMING FOR YOU, CROWLEY, CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’M **HERE!**” He charged forward in a berserker rage alongside the Goddess, who was screaming incoherently and having far too much fun discorporating and destroying demons. Those she had taken the time to actually drain were utterly destroyed, but the ones who were just ripped apart were discorporated and rendered harmless until they got new corporeal forms, which wouldn’t happen immediately.

Doors slammed and even more demons poured out, these ones armed. Some kind of projectile hurtled at Aziraphale’s head and he deflected it with a flick of his wing, but another plunged deep into his thigh. He didn’t register the pain, just grabbed the shaft of what appeared to be an arrow, yanked it out and buried it deep in the chest of the nearest demon. His blood flowed golden from his wound. He struck out left and right, feeling claws rending at his skin through his clothes, and teeth met in his calf muscle, but a backhand downward swing decapitated the demon responsible with one blow. More golden blood flowed but he didn’t heed it, the red mist had descended. He never knew what that meant before today, but he _liked _it. This WAS what he was made for, and he never knew how good it felt. His strength was much more than most people, even Crowley, would ever suspect. He may not be skinny, but it would be foolish to assume that was fat. He did have muscle under there, and yes, maybe a little fat, but he was built strong and was using every ounce of that strength to fight his way to his soulmate now.

The tidal wave of demons pouring through the next set of doors was sure to overwhelm them on numbers alone, but by god, he was going to go down fighting. He would die for his Crowley, if that’s what it took, he knew that now.

There were too many to take them out individually, but Odessa planted her feet and ROARED.

Suddenly the avalanche of demons ahead of them just discorporated into a cloud of black blood, which she strode through, grinning madly, streaked with demon blood. Aziraphale charged after her “CROWLEY, WHERE *ARE* YOU?” he screamed until his throat felt like it was tearing.

Odessa turned to him, briefly lucid, and took in his blood streaked frame, alarmed. She stopped him with a hand to the chest, Aziraphale tried to push past, his wrathful fury still burning hard, but she shoved him back and locked eyes with him. “Stop. Wait a second” she growled at him, and dropped to her knees to the worst wound on his thigh where the missile had struck. The golden blood was flowing out, not spurting, but still too much. He hadn’t noticed. She ripped his trousers open a little more, then leant forward and licked the wound. It burned in a _good _way as it closed and disappeared. She repeated the action on his ripped calf muscle, and some tears on his arms where demonic claws had grabbed at him. Her eyes took on an increasingly exhilarated expression with each bloody wound she licked closed, and she seemed to have to force herself backwards after the last one, staring at him uncomfortably hard. “He’s not far” she gasped, and turned on her heel to stride down a side corridor, following a trail only she could sense.

Aziraphale looked down at his torn clothing briefly, then looked up again and hurried after her. “CROWLEY!” he screamed.

Then he heard it, “Aziraphale?” Distant. He stopped and listened.

“CROWLEY?” he repeated, and head an answering

“Aziraphale…?” disbelieving. He swung around in the direction of the sound and charged down another corridor. Another demon hurtled around the corner, took one look at him, roared and charged. This one had gone with traditional horns as well, with ragged red bat like wings – Aziraphale guessed it had been heavily influenced by human expectations. He raised the sword and braced for impact, screaming in defiance.

It hit him hard and they both went down, crashing into the floor with an impact that tore the breath from the cherubim’s lungs. It was clawing, rending, biting, stabbing in desperation, he felt it rip a handful of feathers from his right wing, and it’s crushing weight close on top of him didn’t leave him room to wield his sword. The Wrath descended on him again. He was so CLOSE, he wasn’t going to be stopped from saving his Crowley this close to the end.

Gritting his teeth, he braced and PUSHED with all his strength. The Demon flew across the hallway and smashed into the opposite wall, cracking the concrete, and then Aziraphale was on him, screaming incoherently, stabbing and slashing, black blood flying in all directions, finishing with a hard slash that cleaved the head from the demon’s body in one strike and sent it rolling across the floor. “CROWLEY?” he screamed again, hoarse now, he felt sure his throat must be bleeding too.

He was rewarded with a slightly clearer “Aziraphale? Are you really here? Which one is you?” Aziraphale staggered to his feet, confused at the words, and carried on down the blood spattered hallway, slipping in demon guts a little as he stepped forward, and grabbing the wall to steady himself. The concrete cracked under his hand, and he looked at it in shock.

A sound behind him made him turn, Odessa was at the end of the corridor he’d just come from and was draining a huge demon who may otherwise have crept up behind him. Aziraphale left her to it and carried on toward Crowley’s voice.

He came to a steel door set deep in a thick concrete wall, and he could feel it – the spark of love that emanated from Crowley whenever he was near, whether he knew it or not. He slid the metal panel in the door open and took in the scene. Crowley, bound to a chair, facing a window in the other wall, where a facsimile Aziraphale was chained to a table on the other side, being horrifically tortured by two demons. What the fuck? They had made a fake Aziraphale and were using it to torture Crowley by tearing it apart in front of him? “CROWLEY! That’s not me! I’m HERE!” he yelled through the hatch. Crowley looked across, hope flaring in his eyes. The two demons in the next room looked up sharply, and grabbing their torture tools, made for the door heading towards him.  
  
Aziraphale felt pure RAGE filling his veins and turned to the second door, not waiting for them to open it, he kicked it with all his might, and was rewarded with the sight of the steel door imploding off its hinges and into the torture chamber beyond, taking one of the demons with it and crushing it against the far wall. The fake Aziraphale _thing _chained to the table dissolved into molecules as whatever spell created it died with its owner, and he heard Crowley wail in the next room in confusion, a broken, heart-rending sob. The other demon eyed him warily, feeling very alone all of a sudden, but Aziraphale scooped it up and pinned it against the wall, screaming in its face, not even using words any more, he dropped the sword and used his free hand to punch it repeatedly, again and again, losing focus until he realised the demon’s skull was a pulverised mess of mush, and he was instead punching into the wall, feeling no pain, but again seeing concrete crumble under his blows. Even he had no idea that his strength might extend this far.

Picking up the heavy wooden table bodily, he hurled it at the glass window separating the torture chamber from Crowley’s cell, and leaped through the aperture, mindless of the broken glass that sliced into his hand as he vaulted over, bracing his hand on the frame. Crowley had been crying, he looked broken. He was also bruised and bloodied, but it looked like most of the torture had been mental more than physical.

Crowley looked up at Aziraphale in tearful confusion and fear. “NO, who are you?” he wailed. The angel paused.

“I’m ME, Crowley, Aziraphale, that other thing was fake, it wasn’t me, you’re safe now.” Then he realised the look of unrecognising horror on Crowley’s face which then crumpled into pitiful, wracking sobs as he dropped his head to his chest, and remembered his black wings. _Oh god, ohgodohgodohgod he thinks I’m fallen! _

“No, Crowley, no, it’s okay, it’s just an illusion, look, please, dearest, look at me!” He reached out and lifted Crowley’s head to meet his eyes, then ran his other hand through his own greying thatch, pushing his power through his fingers, and felt his scalp tingle, and cheeks itch as his hair returned to it’s normal soft white curls, and his beard vanish. Crowley sat wide eyed, and glanced at the wings.  
  
That was one thing the angel wasn’t certain about – he knew how to change his own appearance when needed, but had never been able to, or even wanted to try to change his wings, and wasn’t sure how the goddess had done it to him. “Really Crowley, it’s fine, my wings are fine, they’re just camouflaged, I’m not sure how to undo it yet, but I _know _it’s not permanent.” Crowley sniffed and nodded, and the angel realised he was still tied up.

Reaching back through the broken window to pick up his sword, he extinguished the flame, and used it to deftly cut the bindings that held Crowley to the chair, then dropped it again and fell on him, sobbing, kissing his face, kissing his tears, hands in that shock of red hair, crying as he kissed the bloodied lips, insensible in his relief. Crowley’s arms were around him and he shook and sobbed back into his angel’s shoulder, holding him tighter than he thought possible. “I thought they had you, I thought they had you, I thought they had you” he sobbed. Aziraphale held him back tightly, burying his face in Crowley’s hair, kissing his head, tears streaming down his face, he never wanted to let go, until Crowley groaned in pain underneath him. “Angel” he protested weakly “too tight”. Aziraphale leapt back immediately sorry – he hadn’t known his own strength and was horrified that he might have hurt his soulmate.

Crowley smiled weakly “the demons broke a few ribs as well, you were a bit intense, sorry.”

Aziraphale broke into fresh floods of tears. “What are YOU sorry for, you silly serpent? I’m the one who should be sorry” Crowley shook his head gently and rose painfully to his feet, cradling Aziraphale’s face in his hands, looking into those beautiful blue eyes.

“You saved me” he said, softly, and kissed him again, deeply, passionately. He paused and his golden eyes gazed deep into the angel’s blue ones. “I love you, Aziraphale, I always have” he whispered.

Aziraphale floundered for a moment, then gasped a strangled “I love you too, Crowley”, and crushed his lips against Crowley’s in a fierce deep kiss again.  
  
As he broke off, Aziraphale finally registered something that had been nagging at the back of his head since he set eyes on Crowley in the cell – the blood on his face wasn’t black, it was golden, like Aziraphale’s. His eyes widened in shock, and Crowley looked confused. “Angel, what’s wrong?”


	10. Tool Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale tends to his beloved, then they tool up for what comes next. Self-indulgent blacksmithing nerdery comitted by the author. PLEASE read end notes for credits & links to 2 fabulous AO3 authors whose words inspired a couple of mechanics in this universe.

“Your blood… it’s … golden!”

Crowley looked puzzled “Yeah? It always has been, what’s wrong with that?”

Aziraphale levelled a serious look at him. “Crowley, I’ve seen more demon blood today than I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime, and ever want to see again, and every single one of those… _fuckers_… bleeds black.”

Crowley looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, I’m not like them, am I? You know that. But I think that’s a discussion for another day, don’t you? Let’s get out of here.”

“Crowley, dearest, wait.” Aziraphale held him, as gently as he could by the shoulders. “You’re hurt, you’re in no fit state. Let me…” The angel laid one hand over Crowley’s heart, closed his eyes, and stilled. He could feel the panicked, thready beat, the ragged breaths under his hand, and pushed his power out gently. He’d never attempted to heal anyone other than himself and humans before, and certainly never another angel, let alone a demon – there were angelic healers for that, like Raphael. Aziraphale was just a cherubim, and only had basic skills, but he couldn’t bear to feel the pain through Crowley that spiked with every breath like knives in his chest as the broken ribs ground painfully against each other from the savage beating.  
  
Crowley’s body, tainted by millennia of demonic influence, automatically pushed back at the invasion of Aziraphale’s power, a natural reflex action of protection. The power pushback bit sharply at Aziraphale’s hand, but he held it firm and gritted his teeth, frowning as he concentrated. “Work with me here, dearest” he admonished, and felt Crowley slow his breathing and try to concentrate on reining in his own immune response to the angelic influence. Aziraphale felt the sharpness recede from his hand, and his power was allowed to push forward again. He winced as he felt each hurt inflicted on his beloved, and tears pricked at his eyes. His own breath hitched in his chest as he felt the sharpness of each pain as if it were his own. He wasn’t sure exactly how to do this, but decided to go with the flow and do whatever felt right. He concentrated harder, trying to visualise the threads of pain, to make sense of them and how to undo it. It was different to humans.  
  
He began to soothe the first broken rib, felt the power catch, and felt Crowley’s power give in and release the fight altogether, letting his own flood in. Too fast, _too fast! _He tried not to panic as Crowley’s being SUCKED at his own power greedily. The bones began to knit back together, the contusions and haematomas dissipating, rents in his skin healing over, but it was exhausting, he could feel his mana draining alarmingly, and had to fight to stay conscious. At this rate Crowley would drain him dry, not on purpose, he had given up control and wouldn’t know he was doing it – his body alone was drinking up the power now, with no regard for friend or foe. Humans didn’t do that _at all_.

Aziraphale’s fear grew, he couldn’t move, couldn’t let go, couldn’t stop, Crowley’s essence was holding him in an iron grip, inescapable, and sucking him dry. But then he felt a gentle hand on his back, then another, sliding out from his spine, along the bones of each wing, power tingling there at first, feeding through. _The Goddess. _He pulled at it tentatively, and felt it unravel through his body and into Crowley’s, first a trickle, and then a gush, then a veritable firehose of raw power, seemingly inexhaustible, almost too much, filling up first Crowley to overflowing, and then himself. It was exhilarating, intoxicating, he gasped and found himself able to push back and let go, breaking the connection before they both drowned.

The angel opened his eyes to see Crowley’s soft golden eyes staring back into his, calmly, lovingly. The hands behind him left his wings and he heard the slight crunch of broken glass as Odessa stepped back again. He hadn’t even heard her sneak up on them in the first place. He shivered and shook his wings out, gratified to see as they flicked into his field of vision, that they were once again flawless white. Crowley smiled at him, and pulled him close again into a passionate embrace, arms around him, reaching out to comb through his soft feathers, making the angel shudder with delight at the sweet sensations quivering through his wings and down his spine, as Crowley’s lips met his again in a deep kiss that felt like it lasted an eternity.  
  
A polite cough. “Much as I hate to disturb you two beautiful entities” Odessa commented from behind them, “we still have work to do”. Aziraphale reluctantly released Crowley, and gave him a soft parting kiss on his forehead before letting go entirely. He turned to where the goddess stood, spattered head to toe in demon blood, but vibrating with raw energy. She glanced at Crowley, narrowed her eyes curiously at the drying golden blood from where his injuries had been, her grey eyes meeting his golden ones with a silent question. Crowley returned her look coolly, noncommittal, sniffed and walked past them both.

“Right, angel, let’s go ‘lick’ some serious butt, eh?” and tipped him a wink. Aziraphale collected his sword from the floor again, shrugged at the goddess, and followed.

“We’re not done yet” observed Odessa. “We’re not just leaving without getting an assurance that this shit is not going to happen again. Getting in was the _easy _bit. Crowley – forges of hell, I know you have them – where?”

“5th Circle – wrath, it made sense to plonk a place all about hammering out bits of metal somewhere that people wanted to hit stuff to take their anger out on.” He shrugged, and led the way forward, a dark look on his grimy face as he stalked ahead, jaw muscles taut. Aziraphale admired his profile as he walked beside him, thinking how unbearably… _hot _Crowley looked when he was angry like this. He bit his lip and tried to push the thought aside. Now was not the time.

Whatever had transpired in the prison didn’t seem to have alerted the rest of the denizens of the 6th circle yet, as they carried on their tasks as before, disinterested in the strangers. Aziraphale had the presence of mind to hide his wings again now that they were white – a side effect of the healing power coming through in the cell. The other two still looked like they fitted in. Crowley because he always had, and frankly, Odessa looked MORE infernal and intimidating than most of the demons around them. Any who did glance up at them, looked away quickly, recognising them as People Not To Be Messed With. Dealing with mysterious strangers was way above their metaphorical pay grade.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” whispered Aziraphale sidelong to Odessa, “why didn’t they raise the alarm?” 

She looked coolly back at him. “We didn’t leave any alive in there capable of doing so”. Aziraphale gawped and shuddered. She stared back at him. “You did your fair share of smiting too, Aziraphale, or did you lose count of the bodies in your holy wrath?” Aziraphale looked nonplussed.

The lift grated and squealed its way up a level, and the blast of heat that hit their bodies as the doors opened again took Aziraphale’s breath away. The clamour was deafening, and the flames in the forges* far hotter and more numerous, casting sparks and embers into the dark sky. Imps and damned alike worked the bellows on a hundred fire backs, forcing gusts of air through the tuyeres into the hot coals of each forge, glowing yellow hot and spitting sparks. Clumps of brittle grey slag, and gritty coal dust scattered the floor, crunching under their feet.

At a nearby workstation, a soot blackened demon drew a sparkling length of steel from the spitting core of the forge and beat it rapidly and fast, forge welding the folded section. The heat given off by that forge alone began to burn Aziraphale’s face a good 5 feet away.

At another fire, one demon held down a larger piece of metal with tongs in one hand against the anvil, and held a hot set chisel on top of it, whilst two lesser demons with sledge hammers took turns striking with well-practised rhythm till the larger piece was split in two. The cooler half pinged off at high speed, whizzing past Crowley’s head, missing by an inch (not that Crowley flinched even so), and bounced off the fume hood of the next forge with a clang, before falling serendipitously into the bosh full of water, quenching out with a hiss and cloud of steam. The Demon at that station idly reached behind herself with a prehensile tail, and removed the unwanted lump from the cooling tank as she continued at her own anvil, and idly tossed it back toward the other three, bouncing it off the head of one of the strikers, who shot her an angry look. **

They walked on, past a cooling forge where an imp was levering out a sticky, treacle-like lump of semi molten slag from under the bed at the centre of the forge, and casting it aside on the floor. Tools clattered, flames flared high, a huge demon stalked past carrying an anvil in it’s arms as easily as if it had been a small child, and placed it down on a block of wood by an unused forge. It then knelt down and started hammering huge iron staples across each corner of the anvil, fixing it to the wooden work block, so that it would give some spring back under hammer blows but not move.

At the next row of forges the inhabitants worked on normalising, annealing, hardening and tempering tools and weapon blades, chasing the rainbow colours up the length of each brushed steel piece until the bright blue touched the sharp edge, when they quickly quenched the work, freezing the moment in time for ever, the hardest colour in the right place to take sharpening, and blows, without shattering with a blow or bending and blunting so easily.

Odessa spied what she was looking for along the left wall, where a row of demons sat at a bench, painstakingly sharpening the nearly finished tools and weapons at grinding wheels, powered by a huge torture wheel full of damned souls at the end, who had to trudge ceaselessly for all eternity to power the machines. Hot, short spiky sparks flew off each abrasive wheel as they worked. “Crowley, come, pick one.” She indicated the rack of finished weaponry. “Or two, whatever takes your fancy”. Crowley threw her a glance and subjected the arrayed weaponry to a critical gaze. He’d had plenty of experience with mediaeval weaponry during the dark ages, and was pretty handy with a broadsword, but fancied a more ranged weapon as well, casting his eyes over the various pikestaffs, billhooks, glaives and poleaxes.

He picked out two – a wickedly sharp glaive on a long pole that could get to enemies long before their own weapon was in range of you, and a falchion sword with a nice heft to it. Odessa took them off him, and ran her hand along each blade, allowing each to cut her so her blood ran down the steel. Her blood was not black, gold or red, but a deep reddish purple. It appeared to sink into the metal and disappear. She then gripped the handle of each, grimaced, and they felt a push of power in the air as she applied something to them, then handed them back to Crowley. They tingled in his hands, the weight felt right, familiar, he hefted the glaive experimentally, then hooked it over his shoulder, and gripped the falchion firmly.

As they made to leave, a demon looked quizzically at him, and made to approach. Aziraphale tensed, and saw the corner of Crowley’s lips tweak up in the kind of smirk that said he was about to enjoy himself far too much, but whatever it was that flickered across Crowley’s expression in that moment was more than enough to make the demon reconsider his chances, change his mind hurriedly and decide he didn’t want an answer _that _badly. He changed course as if he’d just forgotten something and hurried off in a different direction. He was responsible for making the stuff, whatever happened to the items after that wasn’t his problem. Crowley looked vaguely disappointed.

They headed back to the lift. Even Aziraphale knew where they were descending to next, without asking.

The 9th circle: treachery, and Satan himself.

Crowley hefted the glaive into the crook of his arm in the confines of the lift, and reached out his free hand to brush the angel’s next to him. Their hands intertwined, and the warmth that suffused his body, bolstered Aziraphale’s resolve once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I make no excuses for plonking a pile of blacksmithing knowledge into this section. They needed weaponry, and I had an urge to flex my mental muscles on forging memories that I haven't used for years. I originally trained as a Farrier (blacksmith, but specialising in horses rather than decorative ironwork). All the descriptions you see are based on the steps needed to forge your own tools, although I was never a swordsmith, I can at least make tools, and still use the ones I made back then to this day. 
> 
> ** Based on reality. This exact sequence of events happened to me once when striking for a mate, I hit so hard that the cut end pinged off at high speed, whizzed inches past someone's head, bounced off TWO forge hoods then splashed down into the bosh (I put it down to a miracle), where it quenched itself. But no one had a tail to fish it out and throw it at someone else's head afterwards. 
> 
> For the some of this work, I am heavily indebted to two AO3 fic authors in particular WingedSpirit, and FlameThrower, for their beautiful writing which inspired a couple of plot aspects – the colour of angel blood, the mechanics of theistic magic, and more later.  
Anyhow, PLEASE go and check out their works, they are BEAUTIFUL and made me cry, “A blaze of light” in particular I can’t help but keep going back again and again and reading over and over until I realise it’s 5am and I haven’t actually slept yet. It is utterly perfect, you won’t regret it, I promise:
> 
> Author “WingedSpirit”: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingedspirit/pseuds/wingedspirit
> 
> Works: A Blaze Of Light: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19449808/chapters/46293004  
In the Widening Gyre: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046406 
> 
> Author “FlameThrower”: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower  
work: Innocuous: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837399/chapters/46973809


	11. A fistful of Wrath, a swordful of smiting.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Righteous Wrath, Divine Intervention, painful memories, the love of an Angel, awakening, Vengeance. Shit got real, y'all. 
> 
> Please make sure you read the end notes for important credits to some amazing authors, including a work by Neil Gaiman as well that's been nagging at me since I read it to wind into the Good Omens universe.

The doors screeched open. This level wasn’t a wide open expanse of rocky plains like the previous ones, this was vast vaulted halls soaring hundreds of feet high, rib vaults with obscene carvings twining through them sprung from thick columns that looked like enormous ancient tree trunks streaked with blood. Tortured faces screamed silently from fissures in the stone carved to look like bark. They looked almost too real to be carvings too, moments of despair frozen in time. Great halls split off in every direction, dark and filled with a multitude of stenches and unearthly sounds of pain. The demons on this level were not the minor entities of the other areas, they looked bigger, stronger and notably less human for the most part. Their forms of multiple ancient beings mashed together, as if someone had dredged a primordial sea bed and cross bred every clawed, shelled, tentacled monstrosity that came up, then left the result to rot for several months in the hot sun.  
  
Aziraphale glanced across at Odessa. Her expression showed no fear, she was almost vibrating with energy, a manic look in those eyes burning with flames that didn’t appear to scorch her hair. Her appearance more primitive, more clawed, more animalistic than before. She, in turn, looked at Crowley. “Where now?” Crowley looked darkly down the main hall ahead of them. Flashes of memory stabbed into his heart. Being dragged here after his fall, down this hall, his wings ragged, bleeding and broken, his soul ripped asunder and left in shredded pieces. Being flung on the hard stone floor of the audience chamber, the crushing weight as they pinned him down, the tearing, rending, breaking, searing agony of what they did to his back as he lay there, too weak and lost to struggle.  
  
His feet didn’t want to move. His mind, on the other hand, wanted to tear the entire edifice down brick by brick, wanted to fight, maim, hurt, _kill_. _Vengeance_ hissed his subconscious. His back BURNED at the thought, something, some deep, buried forgotten memory was screaming trying to be heard, but he couldn’t understand it’s words. Just _vengeance_. His crow-black wings erupted into being, and at the edge of each feather small flames seemed to dance and play. His feet jolted into action and he gripped the sword harder.  
  
Aziraphale stared, open mouthed at Crowley’s wings. It wasn’t just the flames licking at the tips of each feather that was new, the FEATHERS were different, at least the primaries were. They were no longer soft vanes, but lethally sharp BLADES. Something stirred in his own memory. Something he’d long forgotten, he concentrated and felt it, but didn’t know how to access it properly. “Crowley, wait”. The dark winged being paused and faced him, enquiringly. “May I…?” asked the angel, nervously, reaching toward Crowley’s wings.

“Careful, angel” he warned, but held his wings steady for him to reach out and touch the top joint, eyes closed, concentrating, trying to feel what is was like, then _remembering_. Ah.  
  
He gripped Crowley’s wing a little harder, closed his eyes and shook his own wings out, feeling the change in balance and weight immediately. Yes. He’d had this once, so long ago, before Eden even, he’d never done it again, he’d forgotten how, but his fighting wings were back, bladed at the tips like Crowley’s were. He released his grip, opened his eyes and brought his wings carefully forward to see their new aspect. Yes. He gave a determined grin. “Let’s go.”

Whilst Crowley’s demonic appearance hadn’t sparked any alarm bells for the demons on this level, the sudden eruption of bright white angel wings in the middle of the hall certainly had. All eyes turned to them, alive with shock, anger, and _hatred._ As one, the mob charged. Angel, fallen angel, and Goddess roared as one, and charged back.  
  
Crowley fought two handed – one skilled, strong left arm wielded the glaive in a series of lethal sweeping arcs, his right hand slashed at any that made it past the poleaxe with his sword, while he was able to cover his own back by slashing out with his bladed wings at anything that came close enough. He swept them out at neck height and was rewarded with a gout of black blood splattering across the floor as two demons behind and to his side were laid open.  
  
Aziraphale mantled his own wings into a fighting stance, ignited his gladius and hefted all his not inconsiderable strength into each blow, decapitating and cleaving any demon in range, whilst his wings flicked out left and right in a slightly different style to Crowley’s – movements measured and precise, that had obviously been drilled into him many millennia ago, stabbing and slashing in a wide arc. Black blood streaking the glowing white feathers and scattering in drips from the tips as he spun and struck.  
  
Odessa, still weaponless as she appeared to prefer, was growling as she charged at anything in her way. She grabbed, bit, ripped, drank, and flung bodies aside left and right, but her method was too slow, and could be summed up best as “Carpe Jugulum.”* Although with every demon she drank from she seemed to grow stronger and more manic, more and more piled onto her, managing to pin her down by weight of numbers alone, clawing and tearing at her skin. Whilst it healed up almost immediately, it had to keep up with the rapid pace of the injuries being inflicted on her. Pinned down by at least 7 demons, instead she drew a deep breath, tensed and ROARED again. A WHUMP of power rolled across the hall, and the demons on top of her exploded into a cloud of black blood.

“How about you try doing a bit more of whatever the fuck THAT was, and a bit less of the one-by-one bullshit?” Crowley screamed over at her. “It’s not a fucking production line here, go for quantity not fucking craftsmanship!” He spun around low in a balletic move, wings spread wide, neatly chopping off the leg appendages of several demons at once that surrounded him. A particularly large demon launched itself at Aziraphale, who brought his own wings forward defensively, primaries pointing forward. The demon landed and the bladed feathers slid easily through it’s flesh, spearing it spread-eagled, held up on the wings as it expired. Aziraphale braced his feet, hefted it’s weight on his wings and flung it off with a determined shrug.  
  
Odessa stalked forward, planted her feet and ROARED at the oncoming horde, and another 20 demons evaporated into nothingness, but were swiftly replaced by 40 more. She carried on stepping forward, drawing breath and roaring them into oblivion a few at a time, but the onslaught was unstoppable.

She stopped and screamed upward, with a pulse of power and strange harmonics. “Any time right fucking NOW would be helpful, chaps!” More demons piled down onto her, and then something pulsed right back, like a supernatural echo of the scream, and she looked like she’d just been punched with a sledgehammer, then _glowed. _She grinned, and shoved back at the piled monstrosities, blasting them back a few feet, and then roared again. This time it wasn’t 20 that exploded, the entire hall flashed into a rain of blood. She screamed in victory. “THAT’S FUCKING _RIGHT _BITCHES! Fuck _me_ that was GOOD.” Then, again yelling skyward. “ABOUT FUCKING TIME TOO, YOU BASTARDS!”

“What the fuck was_ that_?” yelled Crowley.

“Friends in high places, bud. Call it a theistic power-up. Also, if anyone asks, that didn’t happen” She winked. The three proceeded, so drenched in black blood that they looked like Red Adair** after capping an oil well blowout, which was also kind of what the demon dispersal had looked like, come to think of it.

The demon onslaught didn’t stop, but this time Odessa reached out a hand either side of her, grasping Crowley’s shoulder in one, and Aziraphale’s in the other, as they stalked down the corridor. They felt her delving into their psyches, feeling for every wrathful feeling they possessed***, drawing it upwards, and flinging it OUT in an aura that enveloped the three of them. The demons literally couldn’t seem to breach it, wailing and flinching back as the field of combined Heavenly, Demonic and Holy wrath reached them. They carried on through the massed throng of hundreds of demons like Moses parting the Red Sea, before arriving at 50 foot tall iron doors at the end of the hall. Crowley snapped his fingers and they flew open, then slammed shut behind them as they passed through.

He cast a glance to the end of the room. “Hi, Lucifer, long time no see” he drawled sarcastically.

The great adversary glowered down at them from his throne of tortured souls welded together for eternity into a bloody mass of writhing flesh. He was huge. They’d seen him like this before when he emerged at the air base, ripping up through the tarmac to a 40 foot tall winged monster. Cloven hooves the size of a small car slammed down on the rock floor as he stood.  
  
“Oh _fuck_ off with that intimidation bullshit!” Odessa yelled up at him, 100% _done_. “Get down here and have a fucking civilised conversation”. Satan looked blank at the tiny beings stood at his feet. The goddess lowered her brows and growled at him. “I am a fucking GODDESS, and I will not be insulted by a mere upstart fallen angel. If you don’t sort your fucking manners out _right now_, I’ll do it for you.”

Satan glared down at them, flexing his clawed hands.  
  
“FINE!” She yelled, temper snapping, and _grew._

Pulsing with the power of a hundred consumed demonic souls, Odessa reached out and grew until she matched the size of the adversary, grabbed him by the neck, jerked him off balance, and then pulled him back down with her, reducing him to a mere 7 feet tall as she regained her regular stature. Crowley would have paid good money to watch the expression on Lucifer’s face over and over again if he could. Shock and surprise, mingled with, yes, a little fear. _That shouldn’t be able to happen_ was written in that expression. Crowley raised his eyebrows in mild surprise and blinked. Aziraphale looked like he was about to faint. Crowley reached out and touched his arm to ground him.

“YOU”, Odessa was yelling at Satan’s face, “Have pissed off a LOT of the wrong entities with your Armageddon bullshit. Now you’re lashing out like a fucking toddler having a tantrum because _these two _stopped your fun.” She waved a hand at Aziraphale and Crowley who stood side by side, wings spread, dripping demonic blood on the floor from each bladed feather.  
  
The devil gawped at the three of them. “How did you get in here? How did you do ANY of this?” He exclaimed, sweeping his arm in an all-encompassing arc.

Crowley laughed. “you’ve got a couple hundred less demons and imps than you had this morning, mate.” Odessa reached out and slapped Lucifer with her clawed hand, drawing blood.

“That doesn’t fucking matter. I stand before you as Emissary of the MetaTheistic Pantheon. I have no vested interest in your religion or any humans that follow it, but your transgressions against this universe will not go unpunished. I am the Justicar, and bring before you the punishment of your OWN pantheon.”  
  
She turned to Crowley, and grasped his head in her hands. “I can feel it now, it was buried down there deep, so deep even you couldn’t draw it forth, but now I know, and I can help you remember. Stand still.” She carefully stepped around his lethal wings behind him, and used her claws to shred his jacket and shirt from his back in one smooth movement, laying his torso bare. Aziraphale, standing to the side, glanced across in alarm, and his eyes opened wide as he saw the entirety of Crowley’s back for the first time. It wasn’t just one scar under his shoulder blade, there were 4 matching scars, two below his wings, and another two below the first pair. His mind whirled as the implications of this sunk in, and he stared, wide eyed, at Crowley in amazement.  
  
“Crowley… stop… time…” she whispered in his ear, and shoved a pulse of power into his back.  
  
With a guttural growl that rose to a scream, Crowley braced his body against existence and felt the gears of the world slow around them, until just the 3 of them stood in a shimmering bubble of null time, set aside from the rest of the universe. Then he hung his head, breathing hard.  
  
Odessa turned to Aziraphale and beckoned him over. He approached tentatively, and felt tears welling in his eyes to see the carnage that had been wrought on his beloved’s back at some time in the past. It would have to have been long before they met. Crowley had been keeping it hidden _all _this time. His tears overflowed as he reached forward to caress the marred skin, so, so gently. “Oh _dearest_…” he sobbed, stroking Crowley’s mutilated back.

The angel leant forward, and rested his head against Crowley, resting his forehead between the black wings, his tears running down onto the exposed skin, his arms wrapping Crowley’s chest from behind as he cried angel tears down his back. He felt Odessa touch his own shoulder for a second, and a wave of understanding flooded through him. He lowered his head and gently kissed each scar.  
  
“Aziraphale? What…?” Crowley gasped, weakly. Waves of pure love were radiating up and down his spine, he could FEEL it, along with the angel’s wet tears and soft kisses. Then his back was _burning_, but a _good_ burning. Aziraphale felt the heat under his lips and pulled back, seeing the scars glowing with increasing intensity until he had to shut his eyes against the glare. Crowley gasped as if he’d just surfaced from a deep dive, and lurched forwards. His spine shuddering. The Goddess stepped up in front of him and lifted his chin so his eyes met hers.

“_Remember_” she commanded.  
  
Crowley looked at her in confusion. “What? Remember what?"

She stared back into his golden eyes.

_“REMEMBER”_

Crowley rolled his eyes in frustration. “WHAT, woman? I’ve got over 6000 years worth of memories in here, which bloody one did you want? Work with me here!”  
“Remember your _name_, your _purpose_.”

Crowley looked like he’d been slapped and recoiled. His back itched like a thousand termites were crawling over it, frustrating him, he knew he had to do something but couldn’t put his finger on what. He delved into his own mind, then recoiled in pain at the barrier he felt there, locking him out of things he’d buried for millennia.   
  
“Try” the Goddess pressed him.

Aziraphale’s arms were around him once again, “yes, dearest, you can do it” he urged.

Crowley concentrated. The barrier in his head still hurt, BURNED, his head spun, burning, spinning, falling, breaking, tearing, spinning, burning, _falling. FALLING_. Wings Burning, ripping, tearing, breaking. Beautiful wings, black and blue, purple and red, orange and solid gold, a sunrise of feathers into the darkness of the troposphere at the top. Wings. All burned up. Broken. Torn away. Only the top, the darkness of space, remained, and oh, how they hurt, had _hurt ever since_. Then he felt the Goddess holding his head in her hands again, could feel her reading him, feeling along with him. He opened his eyes to see her face contorting with pain alongside the flashes that he felt himself, sharing his pain, and understanding. She gazed into his eyes.  
  
“RAGUEL, VENGEANCE OF THE LORD, ARISE.” A bolt of power shot through his body from his temples to his feet, More visions ripped through his mind, _awareness, awakening, a broken angel on the ground, wings all bent, blood, a lily, a spider, a kiss, a blinding light, FIRE, sadness, emptiness, regret, abandonment, then…_  
  
His black wings shot out straight in a painful spasm, then two more pairs ripped out of the firmament into existence beneath them, making him stagger back, Aziraphale’s strong arms holding him upright. He regained his footing and flapped all 6 wings just once, balancing himself and standing tall again. He rolled his neck and stretched sinuously. Aziraphale gasped behind him, gazing at the glory of the Archangel’s wings before him. Crowley looked up, eyes still golden, unchanged.

The Goddess held his gaze. “It’s time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * This is where we find who is a Pratchett fan as well as a Gaiman fan ;) The reaslisation that her unarmed fighting style was literally always “sieze the throat” woke me up this morning giggling at the link to another Pratchett work and I had to come back and plonk the phase in. You’re welcome.
> 
> ** Red Adair was an internationally famous firefighter who specialised in capping oil well blowouts, huge gouts of burning oil or gas leaping hundreds of feet into the air and burning for sometimes months on end, uncontrollable. He pioneeded a balls-to-the-wall bonkers method of extinguishing the oil well fires by aiming a blast of high powered explosive at the well head, the shockwave of which would deprive the fire of oxygen and extinguish it, leaving them then to cool and then bulldoze a cap over the leaking oil or gas. Go watch some youtube videos of him in action, it’s impressive. (I grew up in the middle east around oil wells in the desert, you pick up a thing or two. Also, I recall on more than one occasion my dad coming home from work literally covered from head to toe in black crude oil, and my mum having to hose him off outside the house – that’s what this lot looks like covered in black demon blood.) 
> 
> *** Ok, Ok, for those who have been good and NOT googled her name yet, and I PROMISE you this was sheer coincidence – Odessa translates as “Wrathful”. I literally picked her name out of the air by muttering “goddess…uh, goddess-uh, um, goddess-A, OH! Drop the G, Odessa! That’ll do. *Does a quick google to see if it has any connotations, looks at the results, and giggles uncontrollably for a few moments at the serendipity of the choice.*
> 
> For the some of this work, I am heavily indebted to two AO3 fic authors in particular WingedSpirit, and FlameThrower, for their beautiful writing which inspired a couple of plot aspects – the colour of angel blood, the mechanics of theistic magic, and in this chapter, the concept of bladed wings, it was just too cool of a concept to let go of. Unlike in their universe however, where the bladed feathers are permanent, I decided in my universe to make them optional, to be called forward when needed for battle. 
> 
> Anyhow, PLEASE go and check out their works, they are BEAUTIFUL and made me cry, “A blaze of light” in particular I can’t help but keep going back again and again and reading over and over until I realise it’s 5am and I haven’t actually slept yet. It is utterly perfect, you won’t regret it, I promise:
> 
> Author “WingedSpirit”: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingedspirit/pseuds/wingedspirit
> 
> Works: A Blaze Of Light: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19449808/chapters/46293004  
In the Widening Gyre: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046406 
> 
> Author “FlameThrower”: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower  
work: Innocuous: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837399/chapters/46973809 
> 
> Although WingedSpirit went with the popular Raphael headcanon theory, I decided to go in a different direction, inspired by a short story of Neil Gaiman’s regarding a different angel : Raguel, the Vengeance Of The Lord. Nontheless, I had been playing with colours in my own artistic way and replicated WingedSpirit’s description of Raphael’s archangel wings in such a beautiful way that I couldn’t help but use it here for someone else. I’ll see if I can find a way to link to an image of my colour experiements later. 
> 
> Yes, I know that the angel Raguel mentioned in Neil Gaiman’s “Murder Mysteries” is not mentioned as being an archangel in either that work or other references, but this one is my universe and I’m going with it anyway, because fudge. Elements of the angel’s fall are inspired by “In the Widening Gyre” by WingedSpirit.


	12. A deal with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley remembers, maybe more than he wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more blood and violence, but not as bad as previous chapters - it's nearly over now.  
Implied PTSD flashbacks

Crowley released his grip on time, they lurched, and Lucifer was staring, wide eyed at the vision of a 6 winged archangel before his eyes in an instant. Realisation dawned on his face, recognition, hurt, and _fear_. Crowley slowly raised his golden eyes, unflinching, to meet Lucifer’s.  
  
Raising all 6 wings, he felt his aspect flowing through him again for the first time since before the world was made, when there was nothing but the firmament above, choirs of angels working to sculpt creation. It had been Archangel Lucifer, pre-fall, who had woken him, assigned his primary purpose, and Raguel carried out his first instructions.

After that, he had seen the doubt fill the minds of those who shut their eyes away from heaven. His function was to wreak vengeance down upon them, to cast them down, to banish them forever, punish them. But how could he punish them when he knew their questions were not wrong?  
  
He had been pitched into a well of sorrow, and joined the angels sculpting the skies, where his tears wept out diamond stars and spun galaxies. He remembered poor sweet Carasel, and Saraquael, the first lovers, torn apart by the very thing they created, and in their memory, created the binary star system Alpha Centauri* – two beings spinning together as one for all time. He cried out nebulae until the tears were gone, and with no more tears left to cry, he cast his eyes down upon everything that was happening on the battlefields of heaven, and questioned the Almighty as to how she could let so much bloodshed happen. No answers were forthcoming.  
  
He had watched the others fall from grace by his hand, and, feeling nothing was left for him in a place where questions went unanswered, allowed himself to follow them, sobbing dry tears as he fell, burning, wings ripping apart as he spun down into Gehenna. He was never cast out, he fell of his own free will, and the shreds of his lower wings were ripped from him as he arrived in this hall, where the remains of them had been forcibly ripped from his back to remove the evidence of his former glory, that he wouldn’t think to get above his station.  
  
And now he stood before the first to question the almighty, the first to doubt, the first he had been compelled to cast down, who had tried destroy the whole _World_, who had ordered that Crowley be stolen away and tortured for all eternity by watching a vision of his beloved being ripped apart piece by piece before his eyes, in petty retribution for the Angel and Fallen thwarting the end of the world.

Lucifer backed away, raising his rotten wings in defence, as Raguel glowed brighter and brighter, like flaming sodium, bright white and hot. The adversary turned to run, but was tackled to the ground by the Goddess, who pinned him down, eyes aflame. “No” she growled. “You don’t get to escape this.”  
  
He lashed out with wickedly sharp claws, slashing across her chest, kicking out violently, they rolled and struggled, as both black and purple blood spattered the floor around them. Her left arm was shredded in tatters, a powerful kick had crunched on bone in her lower leg. Aziraphale couldn’t see a way to get between them and slash without getting the wrong one of the roiling entities. Raguel stood still, observing, wings spread wide and glowing so bright it hurt to look upon him. Aziraphale gave up, cast his sword down and bundled into the fray, managed to grab an angry red arm and pulled with all his might, having the satisfaction of hearing and feeling tendons snap and joints dislocate in the adversary. The scream was deafening.

The action was enough for the Goddess to wriggle free, holding herself up on her good arm, fury burning to her very soul, and seeing Lucifer held out to one side by the angel, grabbed the other arm with her good one to spreadeagle him out against the floor, then sat across his chest and with a scream of incoherent rage she lunged forward and sank her razor sharp fangs into his neck and gulped.

Aziraphale looked on in mute horror, then his instincts kicked in, and releasing the dislocated arm, instead grabbed for the goddess’s shoulders and neck from behind, and tried to haul her off backwards. “NO! NONONONONONONO!” he screamed, straining against her, but whatever she was getting had increased her own strength exponentially, it was like pulling against a mountain, a burning, furious mountain. Lucifer wasn’t fighting back now, he lay still, transfixed.

Aziraphale redoubled his efforts, and instead used BOTH arms across Odessa’s throat, at least trying to stop her swallowing any more than she already had. It seemed to work, she choked and released, falling backwards. She went to get up again, but Raguel’s hand pressed her back down, firmly. “The punishment is not yours to give” he reminded her. She sank back wordlessly. He raised his voice. “I am the Vengeance of the Lord.”

Lucifer sat up, dazed, as Raguel knelt down before him, gazing into his eyes, then reached forward, and enveloped the fallen angel in a gentle embrace, his blinding aspect dimming slightly. “I am sorry, brother, that I had to cast you down. You wanted free will, and the price you paid for that was terrible, but you will still be my brother until the end of the ages. I will not destroy you as I destroyed Saraquael. You exist in a hell of your own devising for all eternity, that is far worse than the release of oblivion I could grant you. All I will take is a blood pact. The blood has already been taken, and will be held in trust by the Goddess in her aspect as Justicar, so that the accord can never be broken, with us, or with any of the gods.”

“Should the pact be broken, the Goddess will feel it, and all the gods of the universe shall know, and their retribution shall not be as merciful. I shall be sent back to deal with you, and I will not spare you a second time.” Lucifer met his steady, golden gaze and nodded.  
  
The devil stood, slowly, straightening up, broken wings crunching straight again as he healed himself, drawing on the power of his domain to repair his injuries. “You shall have your accord. Speak your terms, brother.”  
  
Raguel stood as well, wings spread high over his head, the wing tips still flaming in a glorious halo of light around his body.  
  
“The angel Aziraphale and fallen angel Crowley are to be left undisturbed, as guardians of the earth. Not of heaven or hell, but both spheres shall answer to them in any circumstance pertaining to the fate of the earth as a whole.”

“Armageddon will not take place unless ALL the gods of the world agree that there is no other option for mankind. “

“Neither shall any retribution be taken on the Justicar, or her herd. They are set aside from the games of gods and men, as before.”

Lucifer nodded, and cast his hands down to the floor, splattered with the blood of them all, and the pooled blood formed into the words that Raguel had just uttered, then flamed bright and burned, etching deep into the stone for all eternity.  
  
Raguel nodded, folded his wings down, but not away, and his light dimmed.

“These terms are known to those in this room, and the deities above, who watch us even now. We would not destabilise the pantheon by allowing your subjects to view your loss of face, as that could pitch all of heaven and hell into chaos. You will be permitted to insinuate a draw, or partial victory on your part, that persuaded us to leave hell.” He cast his hand out over the letters with a ripple in the air. “These words are visible to us, but none else, and here they shall stay until the end of time.”  
  
With that he turned his back on the adversary, and breathed out slowly, relaxed, and ….

… was Crowley again.

He looked up at Aziraphale and smiled. “Let’s go home, Angel.”

He paused a moment, and called back to Lucifer. “And Aziraphale’s keeping his sword this time. If you want to start Armageddon again, you’re going to have to fight him for it.” He was rewarded with a shocked look of horror from the angel, and grinned.

Odessa grimaced and willed her broken leg back together with a grunt of effort, as her shredded arm slowly healed, but remained horrifically scarred. Satan’s claws are, after all, supernatural weapons, even if he isn’t a god. But she felt his dark blood coursing through her body and smiled, the power was indescribable. She shuddered in ecstasy, it wasn’t a bad deal.

The three stalked slowly out through the doors of the audience chamber, as the serried ranks of demons shrank back in fear. Crowley held his wings out wide, flaming bright, head held high, fearless, and led them out of hell.

Aziraphale whispered at him, sidelong. “Raguel?” Crowley shot him a Look, the angel held up his hands placating “sorry, sorry…”

Crowley sighed. “Just Crowley, Angel. Just Crowley, and if you tell anyone about this I’ll never talk to YOU again. Don’t go getting any ideas, I’m still me, just… mended a little. Different but the same.”

Aziraphale looked worried. “Are, are you still… _fallen_?”

Crowley shrugged – an impressive movement with 3 pairs of wings in play, and replied, simply, “I’m me, always have been, but this time, we are _really_ free. Got it in writing and everything.” He grinned, mischievously.

As they reached the base of the escalator leading upwards, demons still trying desperately to give them room as they passed, Crowley shrugged his wings away with an ecstatic moan, and circled his shoulders. Aziraphale followed suit, and casting his gaze down in disgust at the dark shabby disguise he was still clothed in, rolled his eyes, sighed, and miracled his own clothes back again then looked at Crowley.

“Um, dear? Much as I’m enjoying the sight of your naked chest, perhaps you had better cover up a little too?”

Crowley glanced down absently and raised his eyebrows. “Uh. Erm, yeah. Probably should do, really. He snapped his fingers and shrugged his arms back into his familiar clothing again, spun from raw firmament. His jeans were still splattered in black, gold and purple blood and he sighed and looked at Aziraphale, who smiled warmly, and blew gently at the stains, which dissolved to nothing.

“My treat” he winked at Crowley.

Odessa shook her hair out back into the brown-auburn-gold medley, her claws disappearing, fangs tucked away, and insolently began to lick some of the blood off her arms like a damned cat. Aziraphale looked at her disapprovingly and she paused, tongue half out. “What?” He shook his head slightly and she rolled her eyes at him. “_Fine._” She waved her hands over her clothes and miracled the blood away. “I wouldn’t want to get it all over the Carlton’s interior anyway” she grumped.

As they exited the foyer to the street, Crowley’s eyes lit up at the sight of the car. He waved at the parking ticket on it’s windscreen and it combusted in a tiny lick of flame. Odessa looked at the expression on his face and smiled. “Catch” she called at him, and tossed the keys over. “My arm’s still sore” she lied. “You drive us back”. She sprawled across the back seat as she enjoyed the sight of Aziraphale gently resting his hand on Crowley’s thigh as they drove back to Soho. Occasionally he gripped a little tighter, as Crowley pushed the limits of the engine here and there, and he began to suspect that was the sole reason Crowley was doing so. Wily old serpent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Alpha Centauri is one aspect of Good Omens that I can confidently pin on the late, great, Sir Terry Pratchett, it crops up in other works of his, mentioned in “Only You Can Save Mankind” as well. The fact it’s a binary star system of two stars spinning around each other’s gravity for eternity, made the concept fit so beautifully with the first lovers Carasel and Saraquael, as described in Neil Gaiman’s short story “Murder Mysteries”. Raguel felt such utter remorse at having to bring down the Lord’s vengeance upon Saraquael that he was clearly marked by it, and it also seemed to be a catalyst that precipitated Lucifer’s fall, as he observed the harsh punishment and turned away from the light.
> 
> Raguel asking questions of the almighty and not being satisfied with the answers, has echoes of Crowley mentioning that he only ever asked questions, his sympathy for Lucifer that he “just hung around with the wrong people”, and in Murder Mysteries, Raguel’s assertation, like Crowley, that he never really fell. It fit together far too perfectly, so my universe spins it together twining Raguel’s fate with Crowley’s, where other authors prefer to go down the Raphael route, or Zeharael, which is also beautiful, but this one is mine. 
> 
> Raguel’s function as Vengeance of the Lord includes the punishment of the fallen angels, and that concept worked well into him being raised again to exact justice on Lucifer for his transgressions against the world.


	13. Bookshop Shenanigans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ineffable husbands repeat themselves, quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol, Odessa reluctantly accepts the assistance of a pair of Guardians, Crowley does some self exploration and finds a surprise.

As Crowley stepped over the threshold of the bookshop his eyes widened in surprise, taking in the scuffed circle on the floor, scattered salt, and, more pertinently, the splashed demon blood. He raised an eyebrow questioningly at Aziraphale, who raised his own in response and flicked his eyes over to Odessa coming in behind Crowley, nodding in her direction.  
  
“Honestly, angel, I can’t leave you alone for 5 bloody minutes before you’re getting up to shenanigans. Glad to see you had a fire extinguisher on hand this time. What did you DO?”  
  
Aziraphale looked shamefaced “smn’d’a’dmn” he muttered. Crowley stared at him.

“You _what?_”

Aziraphale flinched. “I summoned a _demon_.” He replied petulantly. Crowley did a double take, partly at the whole “summoning a demon” part, but partly because he’d just noticed a parallel in their words from a different time.

“Just as well you had your sword back, then wasn’t it?” he laughed.

“Oh, no, that was later, on the way over to the celestial portal. By the way, do you happen to have any golf clubs, Crowley?” Odessa snorted. “Only apparently I need one on hand in case Odessa ever decides to go rummaging in unseen dimensions again, a five Iron, I’m led to believe, is the most appropriate selection for the purpose.” He grinned, relaxing at last from the stresses of the day. Crowley looked quizzically at the pair of them and sighed.  
  
“So what was the big idea? Were you hoping to summon me so you could rescue me? You can’t summon a particular demon with a circle like that, you get a lucky dip, but it looks like you found that out anyway. What happened to it?”

Aziraphale shuddered. “It wouldn’t cooperate, we were grilling it for information but it was just messing with us”.

Crowley nodded, approvingly. “Yeah, I would have done, too, it’s really the entirety of the job description when it comes to summonings – fuck with them as much as possible. So how did the blood get out?”  
  
Aziraphale inclined his head toward the goddess. “She took over.” Crowley raised his eyebrows, considered the bloodbath of the past few hours and nodded. “Sounds about right, from what I’ve seen. That’s one way to banish them I suppose, all you’ve ever done to banish a demon before is drop strong hints at me about how late it’s getting until I bugger off*. Anyhow, top notch job, well done not setting fire to the place, now get us some wine, Angel.”  
  
The angel returned from the kitchenette with a bottle and three glasses. He stopped in the doorway, thought a moment, turned and put the 3rd glass back. Odessa smiled. “You’re learning” she drawled, and collapsed onto the sofa.

Aziraphale perched on the other end and uncorked the bottle, then decanted it into the glasses. This done, Crowley decided to plonk himself _sideways_ between angel and goddess, his narrow derrière on the middle cushion, flung his legs up over Odessa’s lap until his feet rested on the arm rest beyond, and laid his head and shoulders back across Aziraphale’s soft lap, gazing up into his face fondly. “I love you, Angel” he declared.

Aziraphale smiled, and let his free hand fall to the shock of red hair gracing his lap, twining his fingers through it slowly. “I love you too, dearest”.

Crowley closed his eyes contentedly. “What are we, eh?” he sighed.

“Guardians, apparently” replied Aziraphale. “that’s a new one on me. Does it mean I’m still an angel as well? And what are _you_, dearest?”

Odessa interjected: “There’s no reason you can’t still be an angel as well, Aziraphale. You aren’t fallen, and I don’t see how you could to be honest. As for Crowley, only he can answer that one. What do YOU feel like?” she asked him. Crowley shrugged again.

“Honestly I have _no_ idea. I don’t know if I was ever 100% demon even. I was fallen, yes, but I was always apart. You remember the blood? Well at first it _was_ black. Immediately after I fell, I became tainted, some of me burned away, some of me didn’t. But from the moment I met you, Aziraphale, the longer I knew you, I began to change. I first realised when I was involved in some human holy war or other a few centuries after the garden. I was wounded, but the blood wasn’t as black, it seemed a very very, dark red. The longer I knew you, the more time you spent with me, the brighter it got. I was injured again about a millennia in, and it was more like human blood. Another few hundred years in, it was more copper coloured.”  
  
“I drew a little myself sometimes to compare it, in the last thousand years it’s kept getting brighter. It’s been a definite gold since about WWII, and you saw today how it shone brighter since…” he broke off, and gazed up into the angel’s blue eyes. “Since I understood that you loved me back.” He reached up to stroke that soft face with delicate fingers. “I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but you’re _good_ for me, your love has been healing me I think. That’s one of the reasons I can’t bear to be apart from you.”  
  
“You knew more than that, deep down” said Odessa, quietly. “I could feel it in your head, that’s how I worked out what you were, really. You were buried deep down inside yourself, I could feel the vengeance aspect locked away and guessed. I could see your thoughts about the blood and Aziraphale’s love, you hadn’t put it all together, but the love of a pure being was the key to your redemption. Given freely and cherished. It was the tears and love of an angel that healed your wings, it was the last step that needed to be done to restore you. I just had to guide you to what you already knew.”  
  
“You’re not a demon, you will always have _been_ fallen, but you’re risen on your own terms, to your own level. You could have ascended to heaven if you wanted, but you chose to rise to where Aziraphale was, and no further. This realm is your domain. _Aziraphale_ is your domain. You don’t have to be an angel if you don’t want to be, you’re a Guardian. The best of both worlds. You can walk through hell, or call down holy vengeance through your form, you have the power to draw on both as you choose. You can’t spend 6 millennia as a demon and not learn a thing or two.”

Crowley sipped more wine and nodded. “Sounds about right I suppose. More wine!” he waved his glass at the angel, who topped it off obligingly. “Did you know all of this _before_ you met us?”

Odessa shook her head. “I was sent to protect you, but had to learn as I went. I wasn’t prepared for what I found, the rest was running on divine instinct on how the mechanics of the universe work – how pieces are put together. Once I felt the love from you to Aziraphale, and the love from Aziraphale for you, it made sense, they just needed to be completed.”  
  
“Anyhow” she declared, pushing Crowley’s lanky legs aside. “I need to leave you two gorgeous beings alone, you have a lot to talk about.” Crowley pushed back and plonked his legs back across her lap.

“Nope. Not yet.” He gulped more wine. “_You_, madam, just consumed the blood of the devil himself. What in hell possessed you to do such a thing?”

She looked uncomfortable. “I couldn’t help it, I was already high on the blood of a hundred lesser demons, you couldn’t understand how powerful that feels, that was fuelling most of my abilities down there, every kill made me stronger than before, but also fed the wrath. But when I pierced _that_ vein, oh…” she tipped her head back and breathed deeply. “I can’t describe it. There aren’t enough words in the world for that kind of power, I couldn’t let go if I wanted to, it was like running a race car on nitromethane instead of petrol. I’d have drained him if Aziraphale hadn’t pulled me off. I don’t know what that would have done to the universe, but I know it wouldn’t have been good. I never thanked you, Aziraphale, I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“Are there any negative effects to that?” Enquired Aziraphale, worried.

“Doesn’t seem like it as far as I can tell. I feel more powerful than I’ve ever done before in my existence, but I’ve just done something that no other entity has ever tried in the history of the universe, so who knows?” She looked away.

Aziraphale stared hard at her. “You’re not certain are you?”

A slow head shake. “How can anyone know the consequences of something that’s never been done before?” she shrugged.

Aziraphale reached across and touched her arm. “May I?” She nodded assent.  
  
He pushed his power forward as he had for Crowley in the cell, probing for disturbances. He could feel her reining in her own natural response to push back, opening up to let his consciousness in. Aziraphale flinched a little and drew back, but didn’t let go. He could sense something dark writhing there, quietly, under the surface. “Is that yours?” he queried.

She considered the sensation for a moment. “Partly, yes. Some of that was already there, it makes up what I am. But there’s more than there was. Do you think it’s bad?”  
  
Aziraphale shook his head slowly, “I don’t know, I’m working in the dark here too, but if you don’t feel it’s right, it probably isn’t. It struck out at me when I tried to reach it. What should we do about it?” He studied her face. She looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Do you have an idea?” She nodded hesitantly. “Well what is it, you daft deity?” demanded Crowley, who was starting to feel the effects of the wine and had ceased to give a flying fuck. Heh, _a six winged flying fuck_ he thought, and giggled to himself.  
  
Odessa shook her head firmly. “No. I’ll be fine. It’s my risk to take.”  
  
“Gaaah, come here!” grumbled Crowley, and grabbed her wrist himself, concentrated, in a slightly drunken way, and _rummaged_. She looked affronted. “What, you thought you were the only person who could poke about in other people’s heads? Once you sneaked into mine with that first bloody handshake I figured out something was going on. Just reverse engineered it, just now” he stated, proudly. He gave her a look. “Oh.” She nodded. “Um.” Crowley managed. Aziraphale watched the pair of them, baffled. Crowley explained: “You can feel for injuries and stuff, but not thoughts. _She_ reads thoughts and memories. I just worked out how to do it back.”  
  
Crowley considered for a moment. “M going to sober up, hang on” and he winced as he purged the wine he’d drunk so far out of his body, and grimaced. “It’d better be me then. That way if you get carried away, Aziraphale can pull you off.” Aziraphale’s eyes opened wide in shock. “Oh relax, Angel, get your mind out of the damn gutter, not like that!”

Odessa shook her head “No, I don’t want to do it to _either_ of you”.

Crowley snorted. “Well where else are you going to find a couple of bloody consenting angels at this time of night eh? Literally?” He sat up, shook his jacket off and removed his tie. “Come on, then, have a nibble” he joked. She looked up at him, unimpressed.

“Sit down and put your tie back on. Your arm will do.” _It’s less intimate, will feel less awkward for us all_, she thought to herself. She looked over at Aziraphale. “Ok. I’m just going to try a SMALL amount of angelic blood to offset the satanic stuff. If I can’t let go, I need you to haul me off after 2 swallows, no more, ok?”

Aziraphale nodded, flustered “Oh, yes, fine, fine.”  
  
Not without reservations, she slid to her knees on the floor by the sofa, and held Crowley’s arm gently. “It’ll probably be easiest if you’re relaxed and calm, the less excited emotions you’re experiencing at the time, the less excitement is apt to transfer through to me, which could lead to a bit of a feedback loop and make it harder to let go. Otherwise it’s likely to be a bit like a runaway diesel engine, feeding itself and unable to stop**.” She placed a hand on his knee and closed her eyes, pushing a thought of calm, slow breathing, relaxing muscles and contentment through him, until she felt his muscles untense. She breathed slowly, and looked up at Aziraphale, who nodded.  
  
Odessa lowered her head to the guardian’s arm, and gently bit, slicing through the skin. It didn’t hurt – it never would unless she wanted it to. But it was very much the opposite. Crowley couldn’t resist letting out a moan, and grasped Aziraphale’s hand. He rolled his head back, closed his eyes and felt silver sparkles erupt behind his eyeballs, like floating in stars. His whole body felt beautifully sensitive, and he squeezed and relaxed his grip on the angel’s hand alternately, relishing the touch.  
  
As the first swallow happened he groaned and shuddered in ecstasy, and felt a pang of jealousy come through the contact with Aziraphale, who was already trying to free his hand from Crowley’s grasp so as to be able to remove the goddess from his arm. She took another long swallow, eliciting another torturously euphoric groan from Crowley, he grabbed her hair and tried to stop her from pulling away from his forearm, he didn’t want it to stop, he wanted more.  
  
Exhilarating as it was, she reined in her self-control hard, and managed to release the arm just as Aziraphale’s arm locked around her neck ready to pull. Crowley whined in disappointment, reaching out for her. “No.” she said, firmly, pushing him back. “But thank you.” She sat back, and lifted her hand to the angel, who took it, and probed with his mind again.  
  
“It’s less” he confirmed, “it’s settled, more still, does that feel normal to you?”

She considered, and nodded, “Yes. I can still feel the power, but the underlying darkness is dissipated somewhat. Thank you.”

Crowley lounged back. “Right, I’m catching up on the wine again now” and gulped down a glassful in one draught and a satisfied sigh, then topped off Aziraphale’s glass as well.

Odessa stared at the glasses thoughtfully. “I have an idea…” she began, then leapt up and went to the kitchenette, where they heard her running the tap, before returning with a wine glass half full of water.

“What, you going to do the water into wine trick?” Crowley grinned.

“Close” she replied, and handed him the glass. “I want to try something. Bless it.”  
  
Crowley looked blank. “You what?”

“Bless it. Try to bless this water, make it holy. I want to see if you can.”

Crowley flinched involuntarily. “Nope”

“Try”

“No, nope, nopeity nope, nooooope.”

“If you can do it, then you might be able to bear it now. Give it a go. If you can’t do it, then nothing lost, but if you _can_… That says a lot about what your new capabilities are.”  
  
Crowley considered the glass. “It gives me bloody heartburn just to say ‘for heaven’s sake’, I don’t want to be using holier stuff than that in my mouth thanks very much.” He paused and processed what he’d just said. The “heaven’s sake” comment _hadn’t_ actually done anything this time. “Hm. Point taken. Ok…”  
  
He placed the glass on the table, and held his hands over it, then muttered, with a certain amount of trepidation “_in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti”_ And waited for his tongue to catch fire.  
  
It didn’t.

“Aziraphale, can you check please?” asked Odessa.  
  
Aziraphale picked up the glass carefully, keeping it away from Crowley’s body, and weighed it in his hands thoughtfully, then dipped a finger in experimentally. “Uh, yes, that is indeed, holy water.” Crowley was stunned. He straightened up, and tentatively reached for the glass. Aziraphale’s first instinct was to draw back and keep it away from him, but Crowley raised his eyebrows at him tipping his head, indicating the angel should trust his judgement.  
  
He handled the glass carefully, just millimetres of glass between his fingers and a measure of uncertain doom. It didn’t even tingle. He placed the glass down again carefully, then walked over to the centre of the bookshop, and slowly deployed his wings, then plucked a feather from the top set, folded his wings away again, then returned to the sofa. He cautiously poked the feather into the glass.

Nothing happened.

Nothing continued to happen for some minutes.  
  
He looked thoughtful, then withdrew the feather, clenched his jaw, and very carefully touched the damp tip to his finger, eyes closed tight.

Nothing. Aziraphale gasped. “Crowley! You did it!” Crowley opened his eyes and observed the wet droplet on his finger, feeling it between his fingers, and then, in the spirit of experimentation that he was slightly more certain of, summoned a very tiny demonic flame of hellfire, no larger than a zippo flame, on the same finger. He didn’t feel anything other than a vague pleasant warmth. He extinguished it with a flick of his hand, then boldly dipped a finger right into the glass, swirling it around. He held the glass up in a toast to the room in general, declared “Cheers!” and downed the lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * yes I lifted this from the book. As Aziraphale is in Madame Tracey’s body, explaining everything about the antichrist to Sargent Shadwell, who asks “Wud he be harder to get rid of, than, say, a demon?”, “Not much more”, said Aziraphale, who had never done other to get rid of demons than to hint to them very strongly that he, Aziraphale had some work to be getting on with, and wasn’t it getting late? And Crowley had always got the hint. 
> 
> ** search youtube for runaway diesel engine – it’s can be pretty spectacular – the engine ends up feeding itself, and the faster it goes, the more it over fuels and the faster it goes in turn, it’s almost impossible to stop, turning the ignition off does nothing. You can try suffocating the air intake if you’re feeling brave, but sometimes wadding a cloth over the air intake just ends up with it sucking the cloth in and burning it up. Generally all you can do is stand back and watch it destroy itself, then throw the car away afterwards, unless you feel like putting a new engine in it. 
> 
> That last line seemed perfect to end this fic on, but I still wanted a bit more Azi/Crowley fluff to finish with, after all they've been through, so I've added an epilogue as well after this.
> 
> To clarify the mechanics of some of the Godess's enchantments, as I managed to co-incide some of the effects with the timing of other events, so that the characters themselves didn't realise why they were feeling what they were feeling, which meant the reader may not have as well:
> 
> When Odessa made sure that the ineffables each got a tiny drop of her blood (in the kiss, and the teacup), not only did it mean she could then track them anywhere on the same ethereal plane, but they'd feel a tiny connection to her as well, even if they didn't realise it. So whenever she arrives or leaves them, they feel a tiny tug in the pit of their stomachs. They're not sure why, so for example at the Patisserie, Aziraphale puts the twinge down to the fact that Crowley's leg is resting against his own and it is a frission of some feeling from him, when really it was because Odessa was driving off and leaving their immeidate vicinity. 
> 
> I half planned to use that mechanic as a tool in other scenes, but didn't end up doing so. I may use it in future works though. 
> 
> Also when she shakes hands - that's when she can read minds, she can rummage in a split second and store everything that person has thought up to that point. She does need to make bodily contact again later though if she wants to know their thoughts since the last time she touched them, hence the parting touch on the shoulder, so she could tell what they were thinking after the meeting. The tingle they feel after the handshake is a result of the mind reading.
> 
> At some point, Crowley realised what it was she'd been doing, and reverse engineered it to try for himself, to read hers. 
> 
> Hope this clears up any questions on why some things were written how they were written. 
> 
> For the record, I didn't actually want her to kiss Crowley, so made it as quick and platonic as possible, but it was the most immediate way I could think of for her to engineer the tracer magic on the spur of the moment. I definitely didn't want her pulling the same trick on Azi. I perceive Crowley as pansexual, but Aziraphale as gay, and really don't think he would have been comfortable AT ALL with a kiss from a woman, whereas Crowley just thought it was weird, not offensive.
> 
> This is the same reason that I didn't want her taking Aziraphale's blood, as the act of taking blood is just far, far too intimate and seemed really inappropriate on poor Azi, whereas Crowley is more open. I still wanted Azi to be in control of the situation though. I wanted him to consent to the interaction with Crowley, and to be able to stop it when he wanted. Odessa also sought to minimise the natural eroticism of the act as far as possible, to try to make it more clinical, so it wouldn't be too awkward for Crowley and Aziraphale. It had to be done though. You can’t drink the blood of the devil himself and not be affected, she needed an antidote to all the rampage madness she'd devoured, and a dose of angel blood was the only logical way, so because Crowley had angel blood too, he made the most sense.


	14. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need you.”  
“For…?”  
“Ever.”
> 
> As much as the last chapter seemed to close on the perfect scene to finish this work, I just *needed* to add a soft epilogue for the ineffable husbands. Thank you for reading this far, I love you all.

Crowley locked the bookshop door behind Odessa, and watched as the Carlton disappeared down the street, he pulled the blinds, and turned back to see Aziraphale, still seated on the sofa, gaze stuck in the dregs of his wine glass. He could see something was troubling his angel. Walking over, he plucked the empty glass from his fingers and placed it aside. Aziraphale didn’t move, he continued staring at his own knees. Crowley hunkered down in front of him, placing a hand on his thigh comfortingly. “Are you ok?” Aziraphale nodded, paused, then shook his head.

“I came so close to losing you, dearest. So close. So much has happened and I don’t even know where to start.” Tears welled up in his beautiful blue eyes. Crowley stood, then knelt down astride the angel on the sofa, a knee either side of Aziraphale’s thighs, and held him close. The angel broke down in tears, clutching tightly at Crowley’s lean frame, sobbing into his chest with relief as Crowley kissed his soft blonde hair to soothe him*.

“It’s ok, Angel, I’m safe, You’re safe, we’re together, you’re mine, I’m yours. Cry it out if you must, but I’m not going anywhere my love. I’m here, always yours.” He stroked Aziraphale’s head and neck, soothing his sobs.

Crowley lifted his angel’s chin with his fingertips and gazed into his deep blue eyes, red rimmed with tears, reached down and kissed the tears from his cheeks, tasting their saltiness. “You know what, Angel?” Aziraphale looked at him questioningly.

“I need you.”  
“For…?”  
“Ever.”

Crowley kissed him deeply, hands combing through his soft blonde curls. _You are my world, my redemption, my reason for existing, my everything_ ran through his head, and he knew in that moment, in that kiss, with all the love he possessed pushing behind it, that Aziraphale could hear those silent words too, and felt them echoing back into his own consciousness from the angel, repeated back with the force of aeons of love behind them. They collapsed sidelong onto the sofa, entwined in each other’s bodies, holding close, neither wanting to let go of the other ever again.

* * *

If you'd like to read the NSFW chapter of what happens next, 

** [CLICK HERE.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244955/chapters/50584562) **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * this scene inspired by the most heartbreakingly beautiful artwork I found online by artist “Achin’ Breakin’ Heart” on tumblr – It was so gorgeous I just had to work this scene into the fic. Link: [ https://mundycide.tumblr.com/post/187853093241/holycatsandrabbits-mundycide-freedom-to-love](https://mundycide.tumblr.com/post/187853093241/holycatsandrabbits-mundycide-freedom-to-love) Please do not repost their art without permission.
> 
> NEW! 13 chapters up and more to come, enjoy! It's very NSFW. The goddess's backstory, and Sean's. She carries a different name in this. [ https://archiveofourown.org/works/21738226/chapters/51858469 ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21738226/chapters/51858469)


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